nd loneliness is not good for a sick soul.

Thoughts began crowding, nudging one another; happenings that he had
dismissed as casual took on new and sinister meanings. "Two and two
together" became at once a huge sum, leaping to terrifying
conclusions. Then with the silence and the tense nerve-draw of waiting
came the sense of things finished--done forever. A vast, all-embracing
finality--"_Neant_"--the habitant expression for the uttermost
nothing, the word seemed to push at his lips. He wanted to say it, but
a premonition warned him that to utter it was to make it real.

Should he call upon the name of the Void, the Void would answer. He
feared it--it meant that She would be swallowed also in the great
gaping hollow of nothingness. He strained his ears for sounds of the
living world--the spit of the fire, the fall of clinkers in the grate,
the whisper of the wind stirring at the door. He tried to analyse his
growing uneasiness. He was sure now that she had followed Antoine's
bidding--forgetting him, if, indeed, her desires had ever reached
toward him.

Now she seemed the only thing that mattered. He must find her; he must
follow. Wherever she was, there only was the world of reality. Where
she was, was life. And to find her, he must find Antoine--and then,
without warning, the door gaped--and Antoine stood before him, like a
coloured figure pasted on the black ground of the night. Then he
entered, quiet and matter-of-fact. He nodded, closed the door against
the biting cold, pulled off his cap, and stood respectfully.

"It is no use to wait for the Boss; he will not come," said the
log-brander. "I came to tell Monsieur, before I go on, that le Cure is
safe at Chaumiere Noire. Yes, he is safe, and Monsieur Jakapa have
turn back, when I catch up with him and tell him----"

"What?" gasped Crossman.

"It was to do," the giant twisted his cap slowly, "but it was harder
than I think. It was not for jealousy, I beg you to know. That she
would go if she want--to who she want, she can. I have no right to
stop her. But she would have had the Cure knifed to death. She made
the wish, and she put her wish in the heart of a man. If it had not
been this time--then surely some other time. She always find a hand to
do her will--even this of mine--once. I heard her tell to Jakapa.
Therefore, Jakapa he has gone back to watch with her body. I told him
where. Me I go. There are for me no more dawns. You love her, too,
Monsieur, ther