Without a doubt _that_ was what lay behind the door--only that.

So soon as ever my wine was swallowed and those mighty hinges began to turn I should see a wall of blackness thrusting itself 'twixt door and lintel.

Yes, it would creep forward, now pausing, now advancing, until at length it wrapped me round and stifled out my breath like a death mask of cold clay.

Then sight would die and sound would die and to all eternities there would be silence, silence while the stars grew old and crumbled, silence while they took form again far in the void, for ever and for ever dumb, dreadful, conquering silence.
That was the only real picture, the rest were mere efforts of the imagination.

And yet, what if some of them were also true?
What if the finished landscape that lay beyond the doom-door was but developed from the faint sketch traced by the strivings of our spirit--to each man his own picture, but filled in, perfected, vivified a thousandfold, for terror or for joy perfect and inconceivable?
The thought was fascinating, but not without its fears.