ssolve into a cloud; and
immediately she felt herself again surrounded by a hurrying throng.
Then came all legendary monsters and foul beasts of a madman's fancy;
in the darkness she saw enormous toads, with paws pressed to their
flanks, and huge limping scarabs, shelled creatures the like of which
she had never seen, and noisome brutes with horny scales and round crabs'
eyes, uncouth primeval things, and winged serpents, and creeping animals
begotten of the slime. She heard shrill cries and peals of laughter and
the terrifying rattle of men at the point of death. Haggard women,
dishevelled and lewd, carried wine; and when they spilt it there were
stains like the stains of blood. And it seemed to Margaret that a fire
burned in her veins, and her soul fled from her body; but a new soul
came in its place, and suddenly she knew all that was obscene. She took
part in some festival of hideous lust, and the wickedness of the world
was patent to her eyes. She saw things so vile that she screamed in
terror, and she heard Oliver laugh in derision by her side. It was a
scene of indescribable horror, and she put her hands to her eyes so that
she might not see.

She felt Oliver Haddo take her hands. She would not let him drag them
away. Then she heard him speak.

'You need not be afraid.'

His voice was quite natural once more, and she realized with a start that
she was sitting quietly in the studio. She looked around her with
frightened eyes. Everything was exactly as it had been. The early night
of autumn was fallen, and the only light in the room came from the fire.
There was still that vague, acrid scent of the substance which Haddo had
burned.

'Shall I light the candles?' he said.

He struck a match and lit those which were on the piano. They threw a
strange light. Then Margaret suddenly remembered all that she had seen,
and she remembered that Haddo had stood by her side. Shame seized her,
intolerable shame, so that the colour, rising to her cheeks, seemed
actually to burn them. She hid her face in her hands and burst into
tears.

'Go away,' she said. 'For God's sake, go.'

He looked at her for a moment; and the smile came to his lips which Susie
had seen after his tussle with Arthur, when last he was in the studio.

'When you want me you will find me in the Rue de Vaugiraud, number 209,'
he said. 'Knock at the second door on the left, on the third floor.'

She did not answer. She could only think of her appalling