“Meta, too, is showing her teeth at poor Avis. Heretofore she has shielded the innocent girl to a certain extent. Of that I am certain, and Avis also believes it. But of late she has acted strangely, even showing her temper on several occasions. Lessman treats her at such times with amused contempt. He knows the absolute hold that he has over her.
“But she may injure my loved one. How, I do not know. She is a woman capable of anything. And the ‘green-eyed monster’ has neither brains nor conscience.
“I am going to be a man at last. I am summoning all of my will power for the battle which is sure to come within a few days. I must—I will—break the bonds which he has placed about me. Just as I arose in rebellion against him on those other occasions, so will I rise against him again for the sake of the woman I love. But this time there will be no surrender. I will conquer him and save her, or die in the attempt.
“To die for Avis may mitigate my sin in the eyes of God.
“I feel The Bodymaster summoning me.... My every nerve tingles.... These may be the last lines I will ever write.... I wonder if these pages will ever be read by other eyes than mine?... I go now to answer to his call.... God help me....”
CHAPTER XIV.
The remainder of my tale is from memory, for the preceding lines are the final entry in my diary. As I have stated elsewhere, I can recall certain things which occasionally happened during my trance-like periods. Remember your dreams—vague, indistinct, hazy—leaping here and there? So are my recollections of that last hour with The Bodymaster. Probably many things happened of which I have no memory. In my desire to stick to facts, I give only that which I remember, leaving the blank places to the reader’s imagination.
It must have been immediately after making the final entry in my diary that Lessman summoned me, for the book was in my pocket when I eventually found myself.
Of this, however, I have no memory. My first recollection is of floating through space on one of those strange exploring expeditions in the Great Beyond on which The Bodymaster so often sent me, several of which are described in my diary. Whether I was just returning, or was on my way, I do not know. I only recall that something seemed to be dragging me back—that my whole thought—if thought I could be said to have had—was to get back to my own body as soon as possible.
My next recollection is of being in the room with Lessman. My body lay back in an easy chair, cold, stark and deathlike. I attempted to enter it. But the will of Lessman held me back.