hand and the torch went out.

Shaken out of all ability to speak, I stood in my place. Did I hear a
movement, or only a stirring of the orchard trees beyond the windows?

"Desire?" I ventured, my voice hoarse to my ears.

No answer. I felt myself alone.

I would not at once turn on the lamps. My haste might seem an attempt to
break faith with her a second time. I sat down again, folding my arms
upon the table and resting my forehead upon them.

Well, I had seen her at last--but how? A wan loveliness seemingly
painted upon the canvas of the dark by a brush dipped in moonlight. A
white moth caught fluttering in the ray of the torch. Seen at the
instant of her leaving me forever; insulted by my suspicions, my love
hurled coarsely at her like a command, my promise of security for her
visits apparently broken. How dared I even hope for her return?

Now I knew why my enemy had guided me to those books, that I might read,
fill my mind with the poison of vile thoughts, and destroy the
comradeship that bound me to Desire Michell. How should I find her? How
free us both?

The clock in the hall downstairs struck a single bell. With dull
surprise I realized that considerable time had passed while I sat there.
Still I did not move, weighed down by a profound discouragement.

Suddenly, as a wave will run up a beach in advance of the incoming tide,
impelled by some deep stir in the ocean's secret places, an icy surge
rushed about my feet. Deathly cold from that current struck through my
whole body. My heart shuddered and staggered in its beating from pure
shock.

"_Go! Not tomorrow, not at dawn, but now!_"

The wave seeped back, receded away from me down its invisible beach.
Desire's warning hammered at my mind, striving to burst some barred door
to reach the consciousness within that had loitered too long. This was
the new peril. This was what I had fled from, unknowing the source of my
panic, the night before.

This was death.

A second surge struck me with the heavy shock of a veritable wave from
some bitter ocean. This time the tide rose to my knees; boiling and
hissing in its rush. Blood and nerves seemed to freeze. I felt my heart
stop, then reel on like a broken thing. Flecks of crimson spattered like
foam against my eyelids.

The wave broke. The mass poured down the beach, tugging at me in its
retreat. With the last strength ebbing away from me with that receding
current, I dragged the chain of the lamp beside