lmost hurt, as the newly coursing blood hurts the man that
has been revived from torpor. The mistiness that serves a strong man for
tears clouded his sight. He had longed for her; she had come. From their
first meeting he had recognized, with the visionary's glimpse of the
spiritual, that she was the woman of women appointed unto him for help and
comfort. But then the visionary had eclipsed the man. Destiny had naught to
do with him but as the instrument for the universal spreading of the Cure.
The Cure was his life. The woman appointed unto him was appointed unto the
Cure equally with himself. He had violently credited her with his insane
faith. He had craved her presence as a mystical influence that in some way
would paralyze the Jebusa Jones Dragon and give him supernatural strength
to fight. He had striven with all his power to keep her radiant like a
star, while his own faith lay dying.

He had been a fool. All the time it was the sheer woman that had held him,
the sheer man. And yet had not destiny fulfilled itself with a splendid
irony in sending her to him then, in that moment of his utter anguish, of
the utter annihilation of the fantastic faith whereby he had lived for
years? From the first he had been right, though with a magnificent lunacy.
It was she, in very truth, who had been destined to slay his dragon. It was
dead now, a vulgar, slimy monster, incapable of hurt, slain by the
lightning flash of love, when his eyes met hers, a moment or two ago. In a
confused way he realized this. He repeated mechanically:

"What a fool I've been! What a fool I've been!"

"Why?" asked Zora, who did not understand.

"Because--" he began, and then he stopped, finding no words. "I wonder
whether God sent you?"

"I'm afraid it was only Septimus," she said with a smile.

"Septimus?"

He was startled. What could Septimus have to do with her coming? He rose
again, and focusing his whirling senses on conventional things, wheeled an
armchair to the fire, and led her to it, and took his seat near her in his
office chair.

"Forgive me," he said, "but your coming seemed supernatural. I was dazed by
the wonderful sight of you. Perhaps it's not you, after all. I may be going
mad and have hallucinations. Tell me that it's really you."

"It's me, in flesh and blood--you can touch for yourself--and my sudden
appearance is the simplest thing in the world."

"But I thought you were going to winter in Egypt?"

"So did I, until I