ers and rounded knolls. Far off was the horizon, partially hidden
in the normal snow-fog of this time of year. All objects were
stationary, solid, permanent. Even the mock suns were only what was to
be expected in so high a latitude. Dick was conscious of arguing these
things to himself with extraordinary accuracy of logic. He proved a glow
of happiness in the clarity of his brain, in the ease of his body, in
the certainty of his success. The candle flared clear before its
expiration.

For some moments he enjoyed this feeling of well-being, then a
disturbing element insinuated itself. At first it was merely an
uneasiness, which he could not place, a vague and nebulous irritation, a
single crumpled rose-leaf. Then it grew to the proportions of a menace
which banked his horizon with thunder, though the sun still shone
overhead. Finally it became a terror, clutching him at the throat. He
seemed to feel the need of identifying it. By an effort he recognised it
as a lack. Something was missing without which there was for him no
success, no happiness, no well-being, no strength, no existence. That
something he must find. In the search his soul descended again to the
region of dread, the regions of phantasmagoria. The earth heaved and
rocked and swam in a sea of cold and glaring light. Strange creatures,
momentarily changing shape and size, glided monstrous across the middle
distance. The mock suns danced in the heavens.

Twice he stopped short and listened. In his brain the lack was defining
itself as the lack of a sound. It was something he had always been used
to. Now it had been taken away. The world was silent in its deprivation,
and the silence stifled him. It had been something so usual that he had
never noticed it; its absence called it to his attention for the first
time. So far in the circle his mind ran; then swung back. He beat his
forehead. Great as were the sufferings of his body, they were as nothing
compared with these unreal torturings of his maddened brain.

For the third time he stopped, his head sidewise in the attitude of
listening. At once easily, without effort, he knew. All these months
behind him had sounded the _crunch_ of snow-shoes. All these months
about him, wrapping him so softly that he had never been conscious of
it, had been the worship of a great devotion. Now they were taken away,
he missed them. His spirit, great to withstand the hardships of the
body, strong to deny itself, so that even