," she said suddenly, "do you mind seeing?"

"Sometimes I hate it. These aren't the things, you know, I want to see."

She lowered her eyes. Her nervous hand moved slowly to and fro along the
window-sill, measuring her next words.

"What--do you want--to see?"

He rose to his feet and looked at her. At her, not through her, and she
wondered, had he seen enough? It was as if he withdrew himself before
some thought that stirred in her, menacing to peace.

"I can't tell you," he said. "I can't talk about it."

Then she knew what he meant. He was thinking of his vision, his vision
of God.

He could not speak of it to her. She had never known him. This soul,
with which her own claimed kindred, was hidden from her by all the veils
of heaven.

"I know," she said. "Only tell me one thing. Was that what you went out
to India and Central Africa to see?"

That drew him.

"No. I went out not to see it. To get away from it. I meant to give
things their chance. That's why I went in for medicine. I wasn't going
to shirk. I wanted to be a man. Not a long-haired, weedy thing in a soft
hat."

"Was it any good?"

"Yes. I proved the unreality of things. I proved it up to the hilt. And
I _did_n't shirk."

"But you wanted to escape, all the time?"

"I didn't escape. I couldn't. I couldn't catch cholera, or plague, _or_
sleeping sickness. I couldn't catch anything."

"You tried?"

"Oh, yes, I gave _myself_ a chance. That was only fair. But it was no
use. I couldn't even get frightened."

"Owen--some people would say you were morbid."

"No, they wouldn't. They'd say I was mad. They _will_ say it when I've
published those poems."

"Did you mind my showing them to George Tanqueray?"

"No. But it's no use. Nobody knows my name."

"May I show them to Jane Holland?"

"Show them to any one you like. It'll be no use either."

"Owen--does it never occur to you that any human being can be of use?"

"No." He considered the point. "No, I can't say it ever does."

He stood before her, wrapped in his dream, removed from her, utterly
forgetful.

She had her moment of pain in contemplating him. He saw it in her face,
and as it were came back to her.

"Don't imagine," he said, "that I don't know what _you_'ve done. Now
that I do know you."

She turned, almost in anger. "I've done nothing. You don't know me." She
added, "I am going to write to Jane Holland."

When he had left her she sat a long while by the window, broodi