pale, transient
flicker of light, loomed little Eve Edgarton's boyish figure, drenched
to the skin apparently, wind-driven, rain-battered, but with hands in
her pockets, slouch hat rakishly askew, strolling as nonchalantly down
that ghastly trail as a child might come strolling down a
stained-glassed, Persian-carpeted stairway to meet an expected guest.

In vaguely silhouetted greeting for one fleet instant a little khaki
arm lifted itself full length into the air.

Then more precipitately than any rational thing could happen, more
precipitately than any rational thing could even begin to happen,
could even begin to begin to happen, without shock, without noise,
without pain, without terror or turmoil, or any time at all to fight
or pray--a slice of living flame came scaling through the
darkness--and cut Barton's consciousness clean in two!

CHAPTER II

When Barton recovered the severed parts of his consciousness again and
tried to pull them together, he found that the Present was strangely
missing.

The Past and the Future, however, were perfectly plain to him. He was
a young stock-broker. He remembered that quite distinctly! And just as
soon as the immediate dizzy mystery had been cleared up he would, of
course, be a young stock-broker again! But between this snug
conviction as to the Past, this smug assurance as to the Future, his
mind lay tugging and shivering like a man under a split blanket. Where
in creation was the Present? Alternately he tried to yank both Past
and Future across the chilly interim.

"There was--a--green and white piazza corner," vaguely his memory
reminded him. "Never again!" some latent determination leaped to
mock him. And there had been--some sort of an argument--with a
drollish old man--concerning all homely girls in general and one
very specially homely little girl in particular. And the--very
specially homely little girl in particular had turned out to be the
old man's--daughter!--"Never again!" his original impulse hastened
to reassure him. And there had been a horseback ride--with the girl.
Oh, yes--out of some strained sense of--of parental humor--there had
been a forced horseback ride. And the weather hadbeen--hot--and
black--and then suddenly very yellow. Yellow? Yellow? Dizzily the
world began to whir through his senses--a prism of light, a fume of
sulphur! Yellow? Yellow? What was yellow? What was anything? What
was anything? Yes! That was just it! Where was anythi