the float.

"Want any help?" asked the boat-man curiously as his passenger sprang
from the moving launch.

Spence did not hear him. He was already across the sodden planks. Only
the up-trail now lay between him and the end--or the beginning. The
shadows of the trees stretched waving arms. He felt strong as steel,
light as air as he sprang up the wooded path....

It was just as he had pictured it--the cottage in its square of silver
... the sailing moon!

But the cottage was empty.

He knew at once that it was empty. He dared not let himself know it.
With a doggedness which defied conviction, he dragged his feet,
suddenly heavy, across the rough grass. The door on the veranda was
open. Why not?--the door of an empty house.... He went in.

The moonlight showed the old familiar things, the chinks in the wall,
the rickety table, the couch, the stairway! ... He stumbled to the
stairway. He forced his leaden feet to mount it.... It was pitch
dark there. The upper doors were shut.... "Her door--on the right."
He said this to himself as if prompting a stupid little boy with a
lesson ... In the darkness his hand felt for the door-knob ... but
why open the door? ... There was no life behind it. He knew that....
There was no life anywhere in this horrible emptiness.... "Death,
then." He muttered, as he flung back the door.

There was nothing there ... only moonlight ... nothing ... yes,
something on the floor ... some-thing light and lacy, crushed into
shapelessness ... Desire's hat.

He picked it up. The wires of its chiffon frame, broken and twisted,
fell limp in his hand.

There was no other sign in the room. The bed was untouched. The Thing
which had wrecked its insatiate rage upon the hat had not lingered.
Spence went out slowly. There would be time for everything now--since
time had ceased to matter. He laid the hat aside gently. There might be
work for his hands to do.

With mechanical care he searched the cottage. No trace of disturbance
met him anywhere until he reached the kitchen. Something had happened
there Over-turned chairs and broken table--a door half off its hinge.
Someone had fled from the house this way ... fled where?

There were so many places!

In his mind's eye Spence saw them ... the steep and slippery cliff,
with shingle far below ... the clumps of dense bracken ... the
deep, dark crevices where water splashed! ...

He went outside. It was not so bright now. There were clouds on the
moo