ver shadows and less real
mountain-climbing done by us humans than most folks would believe. Most
roads turn off to easy ways before we reach the hills we make such a
fuss about. Who wrote that, Mr. Locke?"

"I don't know," I replied vaguely, intent upon Desire Michell's meaning
in leaving this to me.

He nodded, and turned leisurely to go.

"Kind of seems to me as if he must have felt like you did when you wrote
that piece tonight," he observed diffidently. "As if trouble did not
amount to much, taken right. I'll get back to Phil, now. She might be
anxious."

Could that be what Desire had meant me to understand? Was there indeed
some quality of courage----?

That is why my most successful composition from the standpoint of money
and popularity went to the publisher under the title, "Shadows of
Hills." Of course no one connected the allusion. The general
interpretation was best expressed by the cover design of the first
printing: a sketch of a mountain-shaded lake on which floated a canoe
containing two young persons. I was well pleased to have it so.

But--in what land unknown to man towered the vast mountains in whose
shadow I panted and strove? Or was my foot indeed upon the mountain
itself?

I did not know. I do not know, now.

CHAPTER XI

"If the Dreamer finds himself in an unknown place, ignorant of the
country and the people, let him be aware that such place is to be
understood of the Other World."--ONEIROCRITICA ACHMETIS.

In the morning I drove down to New York. There were affairs demanding
attention. Also, I was pressed by an eagerness to get my over-night work
into the hands of the publisher. To be exact, I wanted to put the
manuscript out of reach of the Thing at the house. Without reason, I had
awakened with that instinct strong within me.

The atmosphere of the city was tonic. Merely driving through the
friendly, crowded streets was an exhilaration. The practical employment
of the day broomed away fantastic cobwebs. In the evening I turned
toward Connecticut with a feeling of leaving home behind me. But I would
not stay away from the house for a night, risking that Desire Michell
might come and find me missing. She might believe I had been seized by
cowardice and deserted. She might never return.

I will not deny that I had lied to her. There was no intention in me of
accepting her fleeting visits as the utmost she could give. I meant to
snatch her out of darkness and