There was no moon, no star in heaven; yet over this desolate tarn hovered a pale radiance that ceased again where the edge of its waves lapped the further bank of peat.

Their monotonous wash hardly broke the stillness of the place.
The formless longing was now pulling at me with an attraction I could not deny, though within me there rose and fought against it a horror only less strong.

Here, as in the Blue Room, two souls were struggling for me.

It was the soul of Philip Cardinnock that drew me towards the tarn and the soul of Samuel Wraxall that resisted.

Only, what was the thing towards which I was being pulled?
I must have stood at least a minute on the brink before I descried a black object floating at the far end of the tarn.