. A
truckload of lighted lamps blazed along the platform.

"A darkness, a flood of darkness that opened and spread and
blotted out all things."

"Any luggage, sir?" said the porter.

"And that was the end?" I asked.

He seemed to hesitate. Then, almost inaudibly, he answered, "_no_."

"You mean?"

"I couldn't get to her. She was there on the other side of the
temple-- And then--"

"Yes," I insisted. "Yes?"

"Nightmares," he cried; "nightmares indeed! My God! Great
birds that fought and tore."

THE CONE

The night was hot and overcast, the sky red, rimmed with the
lingering sunset of mid-summer. They sat at the open window,
trying to fancy the air was fresher there. The trees and shrubs of
the garden stood stiff and dark; beyond in the roadway a gas-lamp
burnt, bright orange against the hazy blue of the evening.
Farther were the three lights of the railway signal against the
lowering sky. The man and woman spoke to one another in low tones.

"He does not suspect?" said the man, a little nervously.

"Not he," she said peevishly, as though that too irritated
her. "He thinks of nothing but the works and the prices of fuel.
He has no imagination, no poetry."

"None of these men of iron have," he said sententiously.
"They have no hearts."

"_He_ has not," she said. She turned her discontented
face towards the window. The distant sound of a roaring and
rushing drew nearer and grew in volume; the house quivered; one
heard the metallic rattle of the tender. As the train passed,
there was a glare of light above the cutting and a driving tumult
of smoke; one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight black
oblongs--eight trucks--passed across the dim grey of the
embankment, and were suddenly extinguished one by one in the throat
of the tunnel, which, with the last, seemed to swallow down train,
smoke, and sound in one abrupt gulp.

"This country was all fresh and beautiful once," he said; "and
now--it is Gehenna. Down that way--nothing but pot-banks and
chimneys belching fire and dust into the face of heaven . . . . .
But what does it matter? An end comes, an end to all this cruelty
. . . . . _To-morrow_." He spoke the last word in a whisper.

"_To-morrow_," she said, speaking in a whisper too, and
still staring out of the window.

"Dear!" he said, putting his hand on hers.

She turned with a start, and their eyes searched one
another's. Hers softened to his gaze. "My dear one!" sh