es of those others squatted at the
edges of her fire and mocked at her. Then she could fancy that it was
King himself jeering, and that he cried: "_Then He chose me for His
Whisper, and I've found it, and it's yours!_"

She snapped the book shut. Later she opened it to the tale of Tomlinson.
She did not entirely grasp it, but she could not entirely miss what it
said. She hurried on; she wondered vaguely at the call of the Red Gods;
here again, seeking distraction, she was whipped back to reality. There
were the lines, staring at her, as though King had rewritten Kipling:

"_Who hath smelt wood-smoke at twilight?
Who hath heard the birch log burning?
Who is quick to read the noises of the night?_"

And the answer was: "Mark King." Even now it was a torturous twilight
in the cave, even now she smelled wood-smoke; even now she was like one
starting at the noises of the night....

"Man-stuff," she thought contemptuously. She had heard such an
expression used in connection with the verses of this uncouth scribe. It
did not strike her that man-stuff might well enough be woman-stuff also,
being one or the other, or both, for the sheer reason that it was human.
She chose to consider it merely the sort of coarse food for male mental
digestion. A man's nature was not fine and intricate; rather his
emotional qualities must be like stubby, blunt, callous fingers,
unskilled and not highly sentient. A man lacked the psychical and
spiritual and intellectual development which was that of a maid like
Gloria; his joys were chiefly physical. So he cared to blaze trails like
the explorer; the impact of a storm's buffeting and the low appreciation
of a full stomach drew limits marking his possibilities of expansion. He
was a beast, and she hated the whole sex sweepingly and superbly. In
great surges of genuine sympathy her heart went out to herself.

But, after all, the moments in which her thoughts were snared away from
her fears and the oppression of loneliness were few and short. From
wondering what kept King she passed to bitter anger that he should
desert her so; she concluded that he was doing it with malicious intent.

Repeatedly she was tempted to go forth and seek Gratton: to hunt up and
down until at last she came to him. Again and again she went to the
mouth of the cave and looked forth. But each time she drew back,
terrified at the thought of making her way unaided down the sheer cliff
wall. She sought to tell he