hted on the platform beside her and nearly fell. Before he
had recovered himself she sprang up into the train, which began to
move at that very moment. As she got in, the man who had caused all the
bother was leaning forward with a bit of silver in his hand, looking as
if he were about to leave his seat. Domini cast a glance of contempt at
him, and he turned quickly to the window again and stared out, at the
same time putting the coin back into his pocket. A dull flush rose on
his cheek, but he attempted no apology, and did not even offer to fasten
the lower handle of the door.

"What a boor!" Domini thought as she bent out of the window to do it.

When she turned from the door, after securing the handle, she found the
carriage full of a pale twilight. The train was stealing into the gorge,
following the caravan of camels which she had seen disappearing. She
paid no more attention to her companion, and her feeling of acute
irritation against him died away for the moment. The towering cliffs
cast mighty shadows, the darkness deepened, the train, quickening its
speed, seemed straining forward into the arms of night. There was a
chill in the air. Domini drank it into her lungs again, and again
was startled, stirred, by the life and the mentality of it. She was
conscious of receiving it with passion, as if, indeed, she held her lips
to a mouth and drank some being's very nature into hers. She forgot her
recent vexation and the man who had caused it. She forgot everything in
mere sensation. She had no time to ask, "Whither am I going?" She felt
like one borne upon a wave, seaward, to the wonder, to the danger,
perhaps, of a murmuring unknown. The rocks leaned forward; their teeth
were fastened in the sky; they enclosed the train, banishing the sun and
the world from all the lives within it. She caught a fleeting glimpse of
rushing waters far beneath her; of crumbling banks, covered with debris
like the banks of a disused quarry; of shattered boulders, grouped in a
wild disorder, as if they had been vomited forth from some underworld
or cast headlong from the sky; of the flying shapes of fruit trees,
mulberries and apricot trees, oleanders and palms; of dull yellow walls
guarding pools the colour of absinthe, imperturbable and still. A strong
impression of increasing cold and darkness grew in her, and the noises
of the train became hollow, and seemed to be expanding, as if they were
striving to press through the impending roc