med ever about to break into new
terrible presences.

"This thing is wearing me down. I shall go off my head if something
definite doesn't happen"--and then, there in his room with the stupid
breakfast things still on the table, the consciousness of the presence
of God seized him so that he felt as though the pursuit were suddenly at
an end and there was nothing left now but complete submission.

In this world of wraiths, God was the most certain Presence. . . .

There remained only Margaret. Perhaps she could recover reality for him.
He went to her.

He found her waiting for him in the little drawing-room and he could not
see her. He knew then that the Pursuing Shadow had taken a new step. It
was literally physically true. The room was there, the shining things,
the knick-knacks, the mirror, the scent of oranges. He could see her
body, her black dress, her eyes, her white neck, the movement towards
him that she made when she saw him coming, but there was nothing there.
It was as though he had been asked to love a picture.

He could not think of her at all as Margaret Craven or of himself
as Olva Dune. Only in the glass's reflection he saw the white road
stretching to the wood.

"I really am going off my head. She'll see that something's up"--and
then from the bottom of his heart, far away as though it had been the
cry of another person, "Oh! how I want her How I want her!"

He took her in his arms and kissed her and felt as though he were dead
and she were dead and that they were both, being so young am eager for
life, struggling to get back existence again.

Her voice came to him from a long distance "Olva, how ill you look! What
is it? What won't you tell me? There's something the matter with you all
and you all keep me in the dark."

He said nothing and she went on very gently, "It would be so much
better, dear, if you were to tell me. After all, I'm part of you now,
aren't I? Perhaps I can help you."

His own voice, from a long distance, said: "I don't think that you can
help me, Margaret."

She put her hand on his arm and looked up into his face. "I am trying to
help you all, but it is so difficult if you will tell me nothing. And,
Olva dear, if it is something that you have done--something that you are
afraid to tell me--believe me, dear, that there's nothing--nothing in
the world--that you could have done that would matter to me now. I love
you--nothing can alter that."

He tried to feel that the