that this land was inhabited before it was
invaded by the sea? Doesn't it upset all our accepted ideas, since it
throws back the appearance of men to a period which we are not
prepared to admit? Oh, you Old Sandstone, if you were only here! What
theories you could evolve!"

Simon evolved no theories. But, though the scientific explanation of
the phenomenon meant little to him, how acutely he felt its
strangeness and how deeply stirring this moment seemed to him! Before
him, before Dolores, rose another age and in circumstances that made
them resemble two creatures of that age, the same desolate, barbarous
surroundings, the same dangers, the same pitfalls.

And the same peace. From the threshold of their refuge stretched a
placid landscape made of sand, mist and water. The faint sound of a
little stream that fed the lake barely disturbed the infinite silence.

He looked at his companion. No one could be better adapted to the
surrounding scene. She had its primitive charm, its wild, rather
savage character and all its mysterious poetry.

The night stretched its veil across the lake and the hills.

"Let us go in," she said, when they had eaten and drunk.

"Let us go in," he said.

She went before, then, turned to give him her hand and led him into
the chamber formed by the circle of stone slabs. Simon's lamp was
there, hanging from a projection in the wall. The floor was covered
with fine sand. Two blankets lay spread.

Simon hesitated. Dolores held him by a firmer pressure of the hand and
he remained, despite himself, in a moment of weakness. Besides, she
suddenly switched off the lamp and he might have thought himself
alone, for he heard nothing more than the infinitely gentle lapping of
the lake against the stones upon the beach.

It was then and really not until then that he perceived the snare
which events had laid for him by drawing him closer to Dolores during
the past three days. He had defended her, as any man would have done,
but her beauty had not for a moment affected his decision, or
stimulated his courage. Had she been old or ugly, she would have found
the same protection at his hands.

At the present moment--he realized it suddenly--he was thinking of
Dolores not as a companion of his adventures and his dangers but as
the most beautiful and attractive of creatures. He reflected that she,
perturbed like himself, was not sleeping either, and that her eyes
were seeking him through the darkness. At h