ng attacked, of being in peril, that his body was
governed by it and instinctively shrank, trying to make itself small
that it might oppose as little resistance as possible to the oncoming
foe.

For it seemed to him that the wave of blackness was the wave of
Hermione's present hatred, that it came upon him, that it struck him,
that it stunned and almost blinded him, then divided, rushing onwards he
knew not where, unspent and unsatisfied.

He stood like a man startled and confused, striving to regain lost
footing, to recover his normal condition.

"You hate me."

Had he spoken the words or merely thought them? He did not know. He was
not conscious of speaking them, yet he seemed to hear them. He looked
at the blackness. And again it surely moved. Again he surely saw it
gathering itself together, and towering up as a wave towers.

His sensation was absolutely one of nightmare. And exactly as in a
nightmare a man feels that he is no longer fully himself, has no longer
the power to do any manly or effective thing, so Artois felt now.

It seemed to him that he was nothing, and yet that he was hated. He
turned and looked behind him, moved by a fierce desire for relief. He
had not the courage to persist in confronting that blackness which took
a form, which came upon him, which would surely overwhelm him.

In the distance he saw a pallor, where the face of the night looked
into the palace from the sea. And he heard the distant water. Still the
little waves were entering the deserted chambers, only to seek an exit
which they could never find. Their ceaseless determination was horrible
to him, because it suggested to him the ceaseless determination of those
other waves of black hatred, one following another, from some hidden
centre of energy that was inexhaustible. As he listened the sound of the
sea stole into his ears till his brain was full of it, till he felt
as if into his brain, as into those deserted chambers, the waves were
penetrating, the waves of the sea and those dark waves which gathered
themselves together and flowed upon him from the void.

For a moment they possessed him. For a moment he was the prey of these
two oceans.

Then he made a violent effort, released himself, and turned again to
the chamber in which Hermione was hidden. He faced the blackness. He was
able to do that now. But he was not able to go on speaking to the
woman who remained invisible, but whose influence he was so painfully
consci