He hadn’t touched her yet—mind you, it went quicker than it takes to tell, it was still an affair of the fraction of a second—they were holding out their arms to each other, when the door opened again without a sound, and, without visible passage, the phantasm was there. It came incredibly fast, and thin at first, like a shaft of light sliding between them. It didn’t do anything; there was no beating of hands, only, as it took on its full form, its perfect likeness of flesh and blood, it made its presence felt like a push, a force, driving them asunder.
Pauline hadn’t seen it yet. She thought it was Marston who was beating her back. She cried out: “Oh, don’t, don’t push me away!” She stooped below the phantasm’s guard and clung to his knees, writhing and crying. For a moment it was a struggle between her moving flesh and that still, supernatural being.
And in that moment Marston realized that he hated Pauline. She was fighting Rosamund with her gross flesh and blood, taking a mean advantage of her embodied state to beat down the heavenly, discarnate thing.
“It’s not I,” he shouted. “Can’t you _see_ her?”
Then, suddenly, she saw, and let go, and dropped, crouching on the floor and trying to cover herself. This time she had given no cry.
The phantasm gave way; it moved slowly towards the door, and as it went it looked back over its shoulder at Marston, it trailed a hand, signalling to him to come.
He went out after it, hardly aware of Pauline’s naked body that still writhed there, clutching at his feet as they passed, and drew itself after him, like a worm, like a beast, along the floor.
[Illustration: ... drew itself after him along the floor.]
She must have got up at once and followed them out on to the landing; for, as he went down the stairs behind the phantasm, he could see Pauline’s face, distorted with lust and terror, peering at them above the stairhead. She saw them descend the last flight, and cross the hall at the bottom and go into the library. The door shut behind them.
Something happened in there. Marston never told me precisely what it was, and I didn’t ask him. Anyhow, that finished it.
The next day Pauline ran away to her own people. She couldn’t stay in Marston’s house because it was haunted by Rosamund, and he wouldn’t leave it for the same reason.