If Adam had sent her, he could not complain that I would not heed her! Nor would the Lady of Sorrow love me the less that even she had not been able to turn me aside! Just ere I reached the phantom, she pulled the covering from her face: great indeed was her loveliness, but those were not Mara's eyes! no lie could truly or for long imitate them! I advanced as if the thing were not there, and my foot found empty room.
I had almost reached the other side when a Shadow--I think it was The Shadow, barred my way.

He seemed to have a helmet upon his head, but as I drew closer I perceived it was the head itself I saw--so distorted as to bear but a doubtful resemblance to the human.

A cold wind smote me, dank and sickening--repulsive as the air of a charnel-house; firmness forsook my joints, and my limbs trembled as if they would drop in a helpless heap.

I seemed to pass through him, but I think now that he passed through me: for a moment I was as one of the damned.

Then a soft wind like the first breath of a new-born spring greeted me, and before me arose the dawn.
My way now led me past the door of Mara's cottage.