For a long moment the horror lasted.

Then the head, as it had come, disappeared, and the light, light foot fall, faded away.
Buck Daniels had risen, now.

The sound of his whisper made them start.
"I'm going up--to my room--and lock the door--for God's sake--keep--him away!" And so he stole soundlessly away, and then they heard the creaks which announced his progress up the stairs.
Not Buck Daniels alone.

In the deadly silence Kate rose to her feet; and the old man, the invalid--he with the dead body and the living brain, rose from his couch and stood as erect as a soldier on parade.

The doctor was conscious of repeating to himself, hurriedly, a formula something like this: "The thing which is coming is human; it cannot be more than human; as long as it is human it is nothing to fear; the laws of truth are irrevocably fixed; the laws of science will not change." Yet in spite of this formula he was deadly cold, as if a wind were blowing through his naked soul.