arted down the hill at a run.

The man she left gave a sigh, deep and long of intense relief. Evening
had fallen rapidly, and the purple darkness enveloped him in its warm,
dense gloom. He sat absorbed in thought, his eyes turned towards the
east, where the last stretches of the afternoon's great cloud trailed
filmy threads of woolly black through space. His figure seemed
gradually drawn within the coming night so as almost to become part of
it, and the stillness around him had a touch of awe in its impalpable
heaviness. One would have thought that in a place of such utter
loneliness, the natural human spirit of a man would instinctively
desire movement,--action of some sort, to shake off the insidious
depression which crept through the air like a creeping shadow, but the
solitary being, seated somewhat like an Aryan idol, hands on knees and
face bent forwards, had no inclination to stir. His brain was busy; and
half unconsciously his thoughts spoke aloud in words--

"Have we come to the former old stopping place?" he said, as though
questioning some invisible companion; "Must we cry 'halt!' for the
thousand millionth time? Or can we go on? Dare we go on? If actually we
discover the secret--wrapped up like the minutest speck of a kernel in
the nut of an electron,--what then? Will it be well or ill? Shall we
find it worth while to live on here with nothing to do?--nothing to
trouble us or compel us to labour? Without pain shall we be conscious
of health?--without sorrow shall we understand joy?"

A sudden whiteness flooded the dark landscape, and a full moon leaped
to the edge of the receding cloud. Its rising had been veiled in the
drift of black woolly vapour, and its silver glare, sweeping through
the darkness flashed over the land with astonishing abruptness. The man
lifted his eyes.

"One would think that done for effect!" he said, half aloud--"If the
moon were the goddess Cynthia beloved of Endymion, as woman and goddess
in an impulse of vanity she would certainly have done that for effect!
As it is--"

Here he paused,--an instinctive feeling warned him that some one was
looking at him, and he turned his head quickly. On the slope of the
hill where Manella had lately stood, there was a figure, white as the
white moonlight itself, outlined delicately against the dark
background. It seemed to be poised on the earth like a bird just
lightly descended; in the stirless air its garments appeared closed
about it fol