the waterfall from the lake, loud in
that dead hour's stillness, or hearing the soft, incessant sounds of
insect life awake in trees and fields. If she came--a drift of perfume,
a movement slight as a curtain stirred by the wind, then an hour with
such a companion as the ancient magician might have drawn out of the air
to his nine mystic lamps.

Strange, fantastic tales she told me, spun of fancies luminous and frail
as threads of glass. She could not speak without betraying her deep
learning in sciences rejected and forgotten by the modern world.
Alchemy, astrology, geomancy furnished her speech with allusions blank
to my ignorance; which she most gently and politely enlightened when I
confessed. I learned that the Green Lion of Paracelsus was not a beast,
but a recipe for making gold; that Salamandar's Feather was better known
today as asbestos; and that the Emerald Table was by no means an article
of furniture. I give these examples merely by way of illustration.

On the other side of the shield held between us, I soon discovered that
she knew no more of modern city life than a well-taught child who has
never left home. She listened eagerly to accounts of theatres and
restaurants. The history of Phillida and Ethan Vere seemed to her more
moving and wonderful than any story she could tell me. I was amazed and
humbled to find that she rated my ability to make music as a lofty art
among the occult sciences.

Of the evil Thing that haunted me, we came to say little. To press her
with questions meant to end her visit, I found by experience. When I
spoke of that strand between the Barrier and the gray mist-hidden sea,
her passion of distress closed all intercourse with the plea that I go
away at once, while escape was possible, while life remained mine. So
for the most part I curbed my tongue and my consuming curiosity; not
from consideration, but of necessity.

One night I asked her how the dark Thing spoke to me, by what medium of
communication.

"Spirits of all orders can speak to man in every language, so long as
they are face to face," she answered, with a faint surprise at my lack
of knowledge. "'_When they turn to man, they come into use of his
language and no longer remember their own, but as soon as they turn from
man they resume their own language, and forget his._'

"But they themselves are unaware of this fact, for they utter thought to
thought by direct intelligence. So if angel or demon turns his back t