r had been opened somewhere above her and she were being
drawn upwards by some invisible means, upwards and upwards, light as
gossamer and strangely transcendentally happy, towards the warmth and
brightness and wonder that lay beyond.

Up and still up her spirit seemed to soar. Of her body she was
supremely, most blissfully, unconscious. She felt as one at the entrance
of a dream-world, a world of unknown unimagined splendours, a world of
golden atmosphere, of ineffable rapture, and she was floating up through
the ether, eager-spirited, wrapt in delight.

And then quite suddenly she knew that Max had returned to her side. His
hand was laid upon her arm, his fingers sensitive and ruthless closed
upon her pulse.

In that instant Olga also knew that her dream-world was fading from her,
her paradise was lost. Softly, inexorably, the door that had begun to
open to her closed. The hand that grasped her drew her firmly back to
earth and held her there.

In her disappointment she could have wept, so vital, so entrancing, had
been the vision. Piteously she tried to plead with him, but it was as
though an obscuring veil had been dropped upon her. She could only utter
unintelligible murmurings. She sought for words and found them not.

And then she heard his voice quite close to her, very tender and
reassuring.

"Don't vex yourself, sweetheart! It's all right--all right."

His hand smoothed her brow; she almost fancied that he kissed her hair,
but she was not certain and it did not seem to matter. Surely nothing
could ever matter again since the closing of that door!

A brief confusion was hers, a brief wandering in dark places, and then a
slow deepening of the dark, the spreading of a great silence....

The last thing she heard was the steady ticking of a watch that someone
held close to her. The last thing her brain registered was the close,
unvarying grip of a hand upon her wrist....

It was many hours--it might have been years to Olga--before she awoke.
Very slowly her clogged spirit climbed out of the deep, deep waters of
oblivion in which it had been steeped. For a long time she lay with
closed eyes, semi-conscious, not troubling to summon her faculties. At
last very wearily she opened them, and found Nick seated beside her,
alertly watching.

"Hullo!" she murmured languidly.

"Hullo, darling!" he made soft response. "Had a nice sleep?"

She stared at him vaguely. "What are you sitting there for?"

"Taking c