For an instant she lay there stunned.... She dragged herself to her knees, her lips mouthing curses.... She half rose to her feet and staggered toward them as Lessman dragged his shrieking victim toward the door which led to the other room. He turned toward her, his fiery eyes snapping with uncontrolled anger.
For the moment I was forgotten.... Something snapped. I found myself again within my own body, the lust for battle raging within me.... Lessman, surrounded by his enemies, turned like a stag at bay.... I felt the currents of his powerful mind surge around me again like great waves beating against a rock-bound coast.
Every bit of energy I possessed was necessary to hold myself together. He caught me within the power of his will! I felt myself slipping—slipping—slipping! Everything grew black before me. I could see nothing save his eyes—burning—burning into my very soul.
Like a man who is fighting an overdose of chloral, I strove to free myself from the web which his mind was weaving about me. It was of no avail. Again I felt a wave of fire shoot through my veins.
I lurched against the table. Seizing the lamp, with a final effort, I hurled it straight at the face of the mocking demon before me.
I knew no more until I awoke in the hospital.
They say that the place Lessman called his sanitarium was burned to the ground the night before they found me wandering, almost a maniac, several miles away.
As I stated in the beginning, I am unable to distinguish between the truth and the wanderings of my diseased brain. The reader must draw his own conclusions.
What happened? Did I kill Lessman? Did he and Meta and Avis perish in the fire with the other poor unfortunates? Nobody knows.