ious night, when I bid her 'Good
morning' through the telephone, she said 'Good morning,' and not another
word. I said:

'I got my hookah-bowl broken last night, and shall be trying to mend it
to-day.'

No answer.

'Are you there?' said I.

'Yes,' says she.

'Then why don't you answer?' said I.

'Where were you all yesterday?' says she.

'I went for a little cruise in the basin,' said I.

Silence for three minutes: then she says:

'What is the matter?'

'Matter?' said I, 'nothing!'

'_Tell me!_' she says--with such an intensity and rage, as to make me
shudder.

'There is nothing to tell, Leda!'

'Oh, but how can you be so _cluel_ to me?' she cries, and ah, there was
anguish in that voice! 'There is something to tell--there _is!_ Don't I
know it vely well by your voice?'

Ah, the thought took me then, how, on the morrow, she would ring, and
have no answer; and she would ring again, and have no answer; and she
would ring all day, and ring, and ring; and for ever she would ring,
with white-flowing hair and the staring eye-balls of frenzy, battering
reproaches at the doors of God, and the Universe would cry back to her
howls and ravings only one eternal answer of Silence, of Silence. And as
I thought of that--for very pity, for very pity, my God--I could not
help sobbing aloud:

'May God pity you, woman!'

I do not know if she heard it: she _must_, I think, have heard: but no
reply came; and there I, shivering like the sheeted dead, stood waiting
for her next word, waiting long, dreading, hoping for, her voice,
thinking that if she spoke and sobbed but once, I should drop dead,
dead, where I stood, or bite my tongue through, or shriek the high laugh
of distraction. But when at last, after quite thirty or forty minutes
she spoke, her voice was perfectly firm and calm. She said:

'Are you there?'

'Yes,' said I, 'yes, Leda.'

'What was the color,' says she, 'of the poison-cloud which destroyed the
world?'

'Purple, Leda,' said I.

'And it had a smell like almonds or peach blossoms, did it not?' says
she.

'Yes,' said I, 'yes.'

'Then,' says she, 'there is _another_ eruption. Every now and again I
seem to scent strange whiffs like that ... and there is a purple vapour
in the East which glows and glows ... just see if you can see it....'

I flew across the room to an east window, threw up the grimy sash, and
looked. But the view was barred by the plain brick back of a tall
warehouse. I rushed