The next moment, Louis was staring at Velma in bewilderment. Her eyes were filled with alarm.
“You—you frightened me!” she gasped, withdrawing her hands, which I had all but crushed. “Louis, dear—don’t ever look at me again like that!”
I can imagine the devouring intensity of gaze that had blazed forth from the features in that brief moment when they were mine.
From this time, my plans quickly took form. Two modes of action presented themselves. The first and more alluring, however, I was forced to abandon. It was none other than the wild dream of acquiring exclusive possession of Louis’ body—of forcing him down, out, and into the secondary place I had occupied.
Despite the progress I had made, this proved inexpressibly difficult. For one thing, there seemed an affinity between Louis’ body and his personality, which forced me out when he was moderately rested. This bond I might have weakened, but there were other factors.
One was the growing conviction on his part that something was radically wrong. With a faculty I had discovered of putting myself en rapport with him and reading his thoughts, I knew that at times he feared that he was going insane.
I once had the experience of accompanying him to an alienist and there, like the proverbial fly on the wall, overhearing learned scientific names applied to my efforts. The alienist spoke of “dual personality,” “amnesia,” and “the subconscious mind,” while I laughed in my (shall I say?) ghostly sleeve.
But he advised Louis to seek a complete rest and, if possible, to go into the country to build up physically—which was what I desired most to prevent.
I could not play the Mr. Hyde to his Dr. Jekyll if Louis maintained his normal virility.
Velma’s fears, too, I knew were growing more acute. As insistently as she could, without betraying too openly her alarm, she pressed him to give up the bank position and seek work in the open air—work that would prove less devitalizing to a person of his peculiar temperament.