"I thought it was a trick of the nerves, and determined to drive it
away, and I succeeded. And then, just as I was internally laughing at
myself, this hand, as if groping about in the dark, was first laid on
mine, full on it, Val, and then slid off onto the table and linked its
little finger tightly in mine. I, of course, supposed the hand was yours,
and this finger was crooked round mine for fully five minutes, I should
say. After you spoke, thinking that you were trying to deceive me for a
joke, I caught the hand in mine, and pinched it with all my strength
until it was forcibly dragged away."
"Strange," Valentine murmured.
"Deucedly strange! and, what's more, diabolically unpleasant."
"I wonder what that fellow, Marr, would say to this."
"Marr! By Jove, is this one of the manifestations which he spoke about so
vaguely?"
"It seems like it."
"But describe your sensations. You say you felt horribly afraid. Why was
that?"
"I can't tell. That, I think, made part of the horror. There was a sort
of definite vagueness, if you can imagine such a seeming contradiction,
in my state of mind. But the feeling is really indescribable. That it
was more strange and more terrible than anything I have known is certain.
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