Could there be a worse hell than this?
But all at once, without knowing why, moved by an impulse, a blind, resistless instinct, Vandover started up in bed, raising his clasped hands above him, crying out, "Oh, help me! Why don't you _help_ me?
You can if you only will!" Who was it to whom he had cried with such unerring intuition?
He gave no name to this mysterious "You," this strange supernatural being, this mighty superhuman power.

It was the cry of a soul in torment that does not stop to reason, the wild last hope that feels its own helplessness, that responds to an intuition of a force outside of itself--the force that can save it in its time of peril.
Trembling, his hands still clasped above him, Vandover waited for an answer, waited for the miracle.

In the tortured exalted state of his nerves he seemed suddenly possessed of a sixth sense; he fancied that he would know, there in that room, in a few seconds, while yet his hands remained clasped above his head.

It was his last hope: if this failed him there was nothing left.

Still he waited; he felt that he should know when the miracle came, that he would suddenly be filled with a sense of peace, of quiet joy.