to break the link... it can flicker on a while even when the body is dead.

I'll give you hints and maybe you'll guess. Listen, Dan - do you know why

my wife always takes such pains with that silly backhand writing? Have you

ever seen a manuscript of old Ephraim's? Do you want to know why I

shivered when I saw some hasty notes Asenath had jotted down?

"Asenath - is there such a person? Why did they half-think there was

poison in old Ephraim's stomach? Why do the Gilmans whisper about the way

he shrieked - like a frightened child - when he went mad and Asenath

locked him up in the padded attic room where - the other - had been? Was

it old Ephraim's soul that was locked in? Who locked in whom? Why had he

been looking for months for someone with a fine mind and a weak will? -

Why did he curse that his daughter wasn't a son? Tell me? Daniel Upton -

what devilish exchange was perpetrated in the house of horror where that

blasphemous monster had his trusting, weak-willed half-human child at his

mercy? Didn't he make it permanent - as she'll do in the end with me? Tell

me why that thing that calls itself Asenath writes differently off guard,

so that you can't tell its script from - "

Then the thing happened. Derby's voice was rising to a thin treble scream

as he raved, when suddenly it was shut off with an almost mechanical

click. I thought of those other occasions at my home when his confidences

had abruptly ceased - when I had half-fancied that some obscure telepathic

wave of Asenath's mental force was intervening to keep him silent. This,