could reach, it was empty of all life, bare, mournful, absolutely still;
and, as she looked, there seemed to her morbid imagination--diseased
and disturbed with long brooding, sick with the monotony of repeated
sensation--to be disengaged from all this immensity, a sense of a vast
oppression, formless, disquieting. The terror of sheer bigness grew
slowly in her mind; loneliness beyond words gradually enveloped her. She
was lost in all these limitless reaches of space. Had she been abandoned
in mid-ocean, in an open boat, her terror could hardly have been
greater. She felt vividly that certain uncongeniality which, when all is
said, forever remains between humanity and the earth which supports it.
She recognised the colossal indifference of nature, not hostile, even
kindly and friendly, so long as the human ant-swarm was submissive,
working with it, hurrying along at its side in the mysterious march
of the centuries. Let, however, the insect rebel, strive to make head
against the power of this nature, and at once it became relentless, a
gigantic engine, a vast power, huge, terrible; a leviathan with a heart
of steel, knowing no compunction, no forgiveness, no tolerance; crushing
out the human atom with sound less calm, the agony of destruction
sending never a jar, never the faintest tremour through all that
prodigious mechanism of wheels and cogs.

Such thoughts as these did not take shape distinctly in her mind. She
could not have told herself exactly what it was that disquieted her. She
only received the vague sensation of these things, as it were a breath
of wind upon her face, confused, troublous, an indefinite sense of
hostility in the air.

The sound of hoofs grinding upon the gravel of the driveway brought her
to herself again, and, withdrawing her gaze from the empty plain of
Los Muertos, she saw young Annixter stopping his horse by the carriage
steps. But the sight of him only diverted her mind to the other
trouble. She could not but regard him with aversion. He was one of the
conspirators, was one of the leaders in the battle that impended; no
doubt, he had come to make a fresh attempt to win over Magnus to the
unholy alliance.

However, there was little trace of enmity in her greeting. Her hair was
still spread, like a broad patch of back, and she made that her excuse
for not getting up. In answer to Annixter's embarrassed inquiry after
Magnus, she sent the Chinese cook to call him from the office; and
Ann