"Even though you may not care for me, I do not choose to stand quietly
by, whilst you spend your life in Purgatory. Hamar has won you through
some diabolical trickery, and if I can't thwart him in any other
way--I'll kill him. He shan't marry you."
"He will," Gladys sighed. "No one can stop him. He is omnipotent."
Apparently, Gladys's statement was more or less true; and ninety-nine
men out of a hundred, in the same circumstances as Shiel, would have
now recognized the hopelessness of the situation. But Shiel was
abnormal. As he walked home from the Cottage that evening he kept on
repeating to himself "Gladys is my goal. I want only Gladys. I'll have
only Gladys." And having once made up his mind to get Gladys, it
seemed to him, as if out of every obstacle, that lay between him and
Gladys, he could and would merely make a stepping-stone. "Since," he
argued to himself, "all's fair in love and war, I'll win Gladys
through another woman."
And he straightway telephoned to Lilian Rosenberg to have tea with
him.
The latter had already made an engagement for the afternoon; but, all
the same, she accepted Shiel's invitation.
"Will you do me a favour?" he asked.
"If it is anything that lies in my power," she said. "What is it?"
"I want you to find out how Hamar works his spells. I asked you
before?"
"I know you did and I've not forgotten," Lilian said, "but I have to
be very careful. I've played the part of eavesdropper once or twice,
and heard enough to confirm me in my suspicions that Hamar is in touch
with evil, occult powers.
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