to be succeeded by another eager
wave. And this startling living noise of water filled him with a
sensation of acute anxiety, almost of active fear.

"Hermione!" he said once more.

It seemed to him that the voice of the water drowned his voice, that
it was growing louder, was filling the palace with an uproar that was
angry.

"Hermione! Hermione!"

He strove to dominate that uproar.

Now, far off, through the seaward opening, he saw a streak of silver
lying like a thread upon the darkness of the sea. And as he saw it, the
voice of the waves within the palace seemed to sink suddenly away almost
to silence. He did not know why, but the vision of that very distant
radiance of the young and already setting moon seemed to restore to him
abruptly the accuracy of his sense of hearing.

He again went forward a few steps, descending in the chamber towards the
doorway by the worn remains of an almost effaced staircase. Reaching the
bottom he stood still once more. On either side of him he could faintly
discern openings leading into other rooms. Perhaps Hermione, hearing him
call, had retreated from him through one of them. A sort of horror
of the situation came upon him, as he began thoroughly to realize the
hatred, hatred of brain, of nerves, of heart, that was surely quivering
in Hermione in this moment, that was driving her away into the darkness
from sound and touch of life. Like a wounded animal she was creeping
away from it and hating it. He remembered Gaspare's words about the look
she had cast upon perhaps the most truly faithful of all her friends.

But--she did not know. And he, Artois, must tell her. He must make her
see the exact truth of the years. He must win her back to reason.

Reason! As the word went through his mind it chilled him, like the
passing of a thing coated with ice. He had been surely a reasonable
man, and his reasonableness had led him to this hour. Suddenly he saw
himself, as he had seen that palace door by lightning. He saw himself
for an instant lit by a glare of fire. He looked, he stared upon
himself.

And he shivered, as if he had drawn close to, as if he had stood by, a
thing coated with ice.

And he dared to come here, to pursue such a woman as Hermione! He dared
to think that he could have any power over her, that his ice could have
any power over her fire! He dared to think that! For a moment all, and
far more than all, his former feelings of unworthiness, of helplessness,
of