s though he had run a mile.

Chapter XI

I

"And the color of _my_ sound is a pale green," he heard behind him in
tones as sweet as a muted violin string, "while the form of my note fits
into yours just like a glove. Dear Spinny, don't tremble so. We shall
always be together, remember, you and I...."

And when, turning, he saw Miriam at his side, radiant with her shining
little smile of welcome, the relief was so great that he took her in his
arms and would not let her go. She drew him tenderly away downstairs, for
the clergyman, it seemed, was still busy with something in the room, and
had left them....

"_I_ know, _I_ know," she said softly, making him sit down beside her on
the sofa, "I know the rush of pain and happiness it brings. It shifts the
whole key of your life, doesn't it? When I first went into my 'room' and
learned the letter I was to utter in the Name, I felt as if I could never
come back to ordinary things again, or--"

"What name?" interrupted Spinrobin, drawing sharply away from her, and
the same second amazed at the recklessness that had prompted the one
question he dreaded.

The inevitable reaction had come. He realized for the first time that
there _was_ an alternative. All the passion of battle was upon him. The
terrific splendors of Skale's possible achievement dazzled the very
windows of his soul, but at the same time the sweet uses of normal human
life called searchingly to him from within. He had been circling about
this fight for days; at last it was unexpectedly upon him. He might climb
to Skale's impossible Heaven, Skale's outrageous Heaven ... on the wings
of this portentous experience, or--he might sink back into the stream of
wholesome and commonplace life, with a delicious little human love to
companion him across the years, the unsoiled love of an embryonic soul
that he could train practically from birth. Miriam was beside him, soft
and yielding, ready, doubtless, to be molded for either path.

"What name?" he repeated, holding his breath once the words were out.

"_The_ name, of course," she answered gently, smiling up into his
eyes. "The name I have lived to know and that you came here to learn,
so that when our voices sing and utter it together in the chord we
shall both become--"

Spinrobin set his mouth against her own to stop her speech. She yielded
to him with her whole little body. Her eyes smiled the great human
welcome as she stared so closely into his.