last look at the fields and woods he had
known since he was a child, and now it all stood out in brilliant
light, as a picture, before him. Above all there came to his nostrils
the scent of summer, the smell of flowers mingled, and the odour of the
woods, of cool shaded places, deep in the green depths, drawn forth by
the sun's heat; and the scent of the good earth, lying as it were with
arms stretched forth, and smiling lips, overpowered all. His fancies
made him wander, as he had wandered long ago, from the fields into the
wood, tracking a little path between the shining undergrowth of
beech-trees; and the trickle of water dropping from the limestone rock
sounded as a clear melody in the dream. Thoughts began to go astray
and to mingle with other thoughts; the beech alley was transformed to a
path between ilex-trees, and here and there a vine climbed from bough
to bough, and sent up waving tendrils and drooped with purple grapes,
and the sparse grey-green leaves of a wild olive-tree stood out against
the dark shadows of the ilex. Clarke, in the deep folds of dream, was
conscious that the path from his father's house had led him into an
undiscovered country, and he was wondering at the strangeness of it
all, when suddenly, in place of the hum and murmur of the summer, an
infinite silence seemed to fall on all things, and the wood was hushed,
and for a moment in time he stood face to face there with a presence,
that was neither man nor beast, neither the living nor the dead, but
all things mingled, the form of all things but devoid of all form. And
in that moment, the sacrament of body and soul was dissolved, and a
voice seemed to cry "Let us go hence," and then the darkness of
darkness beyond the stars, the darkness of everlasting.

When Clarke woke up with a start he saw Raymond pouring a few drops of
some oily fluid into a green phial, which he stoppered tightly.

"You have been dozing," he said; "the journey must have tired you out.
It is done now. I am going to fetch Mary; I shall be back in ten
minutes."

Clarke lay back in his chair and wondered. It seemed as if he had but
passed from one dream into another. He half expected to see the walls
of the laboratory melt and disappear, and to awake in London,
shuddering at his own sleeping fancies. But at last the door opened,
and the doctor returned, and behind him came a girl of about seventeen,
dressed all in white. She was so beautiful that Clarke did not