disk and the world was visible in an uncanny darkness
that was not dark. The magic of the night had vanished and the beat of
vast, winding melodies melted from Karen's mind leaving her dry and
brittle and empty, like a shell from which the tides have drawn away.

She knew what she had still to do. At the top of the road she was to
turn and cut across fields to a headland above Falmouth--from which a
path she knew led to the town. She had not gone to Helston, but had
taken this cross-country way to Falmouth because she knew that at any
hour of the night she might be missed and followed and captured. They
would not think of Falmouth; they would not dream that she could walk so
far. In the town she would pawn Onkel Ernst's watch and take the early
train to London and by evening she would be with Frau Lippheim. So she
had seen it all, in flashes, last night.

But now, toiling up the interminable road, clots of darkness floating
before her eyes, cold sweats standing on her forehead, the sense of her
exhaustion crushed down upon her. She tried to fix her thoughts on the
trivial memories and forecasts that danced in her mind. The odd blinking
of Mrs. Talcott's eyelid as she had told her story; the pattern of the
breakfast set that she and Gregory had used--ah, no!--not that! she must
not fix that memory!--the roofs and chimneys of some little German town
where she was to find a refuge; for though it was to join the Lippheims
that she fled, she did not see her life as led with theirs. Leaning upon
these pictures as if upon a staff she held, she reached the hill-top.
Her head now seemed to dance like a balloon, buffeted by the great
throbs of her blood. She trailed with leaden feet across the fields. In
the last high meadow she paused and looked down at the bend of the great
bay under the pallid sky and at the town lying like a scattering of
shells along its edge. How distant it was. How like a mirage.

A little tree was beside her and its leaves in the uncanny light looked
like crisp black metal. The sea was grey. The sunrise was still far off.
Karen sank beneath the tree and leaned her head against it. What should
she do if she were unable to walk on? There was still time--hours and
hours of time--till the train left Falmouth; but how was she to reach
Falmouth? Fears rolled in upon her like dark breakers, heaping
themselves one upon the other, stealthy, swift, not to be escaped. She
saw the horrible kindness in Mrs. Talcott'