blinds were down to-night,
and the lamp on the table burnt low; the oil had given out. The light in
the room was still daylight and came level from the sunset, leaking
through the yellow blinds. It struck Agatha that it was the same light,
the same ochreish light that they had found in the room six weeks ago.
But that was nothing.

What it was she did not know. The horrible light went when the flame of
the lamp burnt clearer. Harding was talking to her cheerfully and Milly
was smiling at them both, when half through the meal Agatha got up and
declared that she must go. She was ill; she was tired; they must
forgive her, but she must go.

The Powells rose and stood by her, close to her, in their distress.
Milly brought wine and put it to her lips; but she turned her head away
and whispered, "Please let me go. Let me get away."

Harding wanted to walk back with her, but she refused with a vehemence
that deterred him.

"How very odd of her," said Milly, as they stood at the gate and watched
her go. She was walking fast, almost running, with a furtive step, as if
something pursued her.

Powell did not speak. He turned from his wife and went slowly back into
the house.

CHAPTER NINE

She knew now what had happened to her. She _was_ afraid of Harding
Powell; and it was her fear that had cried to her to go, to get away
from him.

The awful thing was that she knew she could not get away from him. She
had only to close her eyes and she would find the visible image of him
hanging before her on the wall of darkness. And to-night, when she tried
to cover it with Rodney's it was no longer obliterated. Rodney's image
had worn thin and Harding's showed through. She was more afraid of it
than she had been of Harding; and, more than anything, she was afraid
of being afraid. Harding was the object of a boundless and
indestructible compassion, and her fear of him was hateful to her and
unholy. She knew that it would be terrible to let it follow her into
that darkness where she would presently go down with him alone. "It
would be all right," she said to herself, "if only I didn't keep on
seeing him."

But he, his visible image, and her fear of it, persisted even while the
interior darkness, the divine, beneficent darkness rose round her, wave
on wave, and flooded her; even while she held him there and healed him;
even while it still seemed to her that her love pierced through her fear
and gathered to her, spirit to spir