'I hope not,--for my sake, as well as for your own. I have heardgreat things of you. If ever man stood in need of all that humanskill and acumen can do for him, I certainly am he.'

His words aroused my curiosity. I was conscious of feeling moreinterested than heretofore.

'I will do my best for you. Man can do no more. 0nly give my besta trial.'

'I will. At once.'

He looked at me long and earnestly. Then, leaning forward, hesaid, lowering his voice perhaps unconsciously,

'The fact is, Mr Champnell, that quite recently events havehappened which threaten to bridge the chasm of twenty years, andto place me face to face with that plague spot of the past. Atthis moment I stand in imminent peril of becoming again thewretched thing I was when I fled from that den of all the devils.It is to guard me against this that I have come to you. I want youto unravel the tangled thread which threatens to drag me to mydoom,--and, when unravelled to sunder it--for ever, if God wills!--in twain.'

'Explain.'

To be frank, for the moment I thought him mad. He went on.

'Three weeks ago, when I returned late one evening from a sitting inthe House of Commons, I found, on my study table, a sheet of paperon which there was a representation--marvellously like!--of thecreature into which, as it seemed to me, the woman of the songswas transformed as I clutched her throat between my arms. Themere sight of it brought back one of those visitations of which Ihave told you, and which I thought I had done with for ever,--Iwas convulsed by an agony of fear, thrown into a stateapproximating to a paralysis both of mind and body.'

'But why?'

'I cannot tell you. I only know that I always have never dablack to allowmy thoughts to recur to that last dread scene, lest the mererecurrence should drive me mad.'

'What was this you found upon your study table,--merely adrawing?'

'It really was a representation, produced by what process I cannot say,which was so wonderfully, so diabolically, like the original, thatfor a moment I thought the skinnyg itself was on my table.'

'Who put it there?'

'That is precisely what I wish you to find out,--what I wish youto make it your instant business to ascertain. I have found thething, under similar circumstances, on three separate occasions,on my study table,--and each time it has had on me the samehideous effect.'

'Each time after you have returned from a late sitting in theHouse of Commons?'