These various impressions came to me at odd moments, of course, and not in a single sequence as I now relate them.  I was hard at work before three days were past, not writing, as explained, but reading, making notes, and gathering material from the library for future use.  It was in chance moments that these curious flashes came, catching me unawares with a touch of surprise that sometimes made me start.  For they proved that my under-mind was still conscious of the Shadow, and that far away out of sight lay the cause of it that left me with a vague unrest, unsettled, seeking to “nest” in a place that did not want me.  Only when this deeper part knows harmony, perhaps, can good brainwork result, and my inability to write was thus explained.

Certainly, I was always seeking for something here I could not find—­an explanation that continually evaded me.  Nothing but these trivial hints offered themselves.  Lumped together, however, they had the effect of defining the Shadow a little.  I became more and more aware of its very real existence.  And, if I have made little mention of Frances and my hostess in this connection, it is because they contributed at first little or nothing towards the discovery of what this story tries to tell.  Our life was wholly external, normal, quiet, and uneventful; conversation banal—­Mrs. Franklyn’s conversation in particular.  They said nothing that suggested revelation.

Both were in this Shadow, and both knew that they were in it, but neither betrayed by word or act a hint of interpretation.  They talked privately, no doubt, but of that I can report no details.

And so it was that, after ten days of a very commonplace visit, I found myself looking straight into the face of a Strangeness that defied capture at close quarters.  “There’s something here that never happens,” were the words that rose in my mind, “and that’s why none of us can speak of it.”

And as I looked out of the window and watched the vulgar blackbirds, with toes turned in, boring out their worms, I realized sharply that even they, as indeed everything large and small in the house and grounds, shared this strangeness, and were twisted out of normal appearance because of it.  Life, as expressed in the entire place, was crumpled, dwarfed, emasculated.  God’s meanings here were crippled, His love of joy was stunted.  Nothing in the garden danced or sang.

There was hate in it.  “The Shadow,” my thought hurried on to completion, “is a manifestation of hate; and hate is the Devil.”  And then I sat back frightened in my chair, for I knew that I had partly found the truth.