t of both Sisily and himself was desperate enough
now without giving the enemy a chance by recklessness. He was like a man
rowing a small boat in the immensity of a dark sea which threatened every
moment to engulf him. Sisily was somewhere in that darkness, and she must
be rescued. If his own cockleshell went down there could be no succour for
her. That was a thought to make him keep afloat--to keep on rowing.

And suppose that he did find her, as he believed he would, sooner or
later--given time. What was to happen then?

That thought pursued him in his walk that night, and was his constant
companion in the lonely days and nights of his wanderings which followed.
He had banished it before, but that course was no longer possible. The
impalpable yet terribly real menace of authority overshadowing them both
now made it imperative that all the facts should be faced. All the
facts--but what were they? It was the question he asked himself again and
again as he strove to twist out of the black fantasy of that horrible
night some tangible shred of truth which might help them both. His own
incredible share in it was forever being re-enacted in his mind, and
haunted his dreams. In the night, at early dawn, at odd moments of his
eternal quest, the curtain of his mind would rise on that unforgettable
scene--the cliffs, the rocks, the darkling outline of Flint House, with a
feeble beam of light slanting down from the upstairs window at the back
which looked out on the sea. Then the gush of light from the open door,
and her shape stealing forth into the darkness, followed by
another--Thalassa's. And then, the final phase--the desolate house, the
wind rushing noisily along dark passages, the dead form of Robert Turold
in the room upstairs. What did these things mean, and what was to be the
end?

His hope was that Sisily could reveal something which would furnish the
key to the enigma of that night's events. From her lips he might learn
enough to guide him to the hidden truth, and save them both. Sustained by
the feeling that she existed somewhere near him, he continued his search
day after day until in the abstracted intensity of his fancy London
assumed the appearance of a wilderness of unending streets filled with
pallid faces which flitted past his vision like ghosts. But the face he
was seeking was never among them.

He searched with the wariness of one whose own liberty depended upon his
watchfulness. A second glance, an indi