To her surprise, it disturbed her instead of strengthening her determination, and while her lips were moving she felt an almost overwhelming impulse to do what she was determined not to do at any cost.

The sensation startled her, and in a moment she felt that tide of darkness rising to drown her which had almost overwhelmed her while she was kneeling beside her dead father.

Her hand pressed the stone window-sill in terror of the awful presence.
It is familiar to those few who have knowingly or unwittingly tried to penetrate the darkness to the light beyond.

It has been called the Guardian, the Dweller on the Threshold, the Wall, the Destroyer, the Giant Despair.

Many have turned back from it as from death itself, some have gone raving mad in fighting their way through it, some have actually died in it, of failure of the heart from fright.