club of the
black giant. She went and took it from his hand. The dead thing trembled
all over, and rocked as though it would fall, and wagged its great head
at her, but she was not afraid. She raised the heavy club and struck
upon the door, upon the lock, upon the panels with all her might. The
terrible blows sent echoes down the staircase, but the door did not
yield, nor the lock either. Was the door of iron and the lock of
granite? she asked herself. Then she heard a strange, sudden noise
behind her. She turned and looked. The dead negro had fallen bodily from
his pedestal to the floor, with a dull, heavy thud. She did not desist,
but struck the oaken planks again and again with all her strength. Then
her arms grew numb and she dropped the club. It was all in vain. Keyork
had locked her in and had taken the Wanderer away.

She went back to her seat and fell into an attitude of despair. The
reaction from the great physical efforts she had made overcame her. It
seemed to her that Keyork's only reason for taking him away must be that
he was dead. Her head throbbed and her eyes began to burn. The great
passion had its will of her and stabbed her through and through with
such pain as she had never dreamed of. The horror of it all was too deep
for tears, and tears were by nature very far from her eyes at all times.
She pressed her hands to her breast and rocked herself gently backwards
and forwards. There was no reason left in her. To her there was no
reason left in anything if he were gone. And if Keyork Arabian could not
cure him, who could? She knew now what that old prophecy had meant,
when they had told her that love would come but once, and that the
chief danger of her life lay in a mistake on that decisive day. Love had
indeed come upon her like a whirlwind, he had flashed upon her like
the lightning, she had tried to grasp him and keep him, and he was gone
again--for ever. Gone through her own fault, through her senseless folly
in trying to do by art what love would have done for himself. Blind,
insensate, mad! She cursed herself with unholy curses, and her beautiful
face was strained and distorted. With unconscious fingers she tore at
her heavy hair until it fell about her like a curtain. In the raging
thirst of a great grief for tears that would not flow she beat her
bosom, she beat her face, she struck with her white forehead the heavy
table before her, she grasped her own throat, as though she would tear
the li