“You cannot belong to this world,” said the woman.  “Men of your stamp are not to be looked for here.”

“No, I have come here from Earth.”

“Is that larger than our world?”

“Smaller, I think.  Small, and overcrowded with men and women.  With all those people, confusion would result but for orderly laws, and therefore the laws are of iron.  As adventure would be impossible without encroaching on these laws, there is no longer any spirit of adventure among the Earthmen.  Everything is safe, vulgar, and completed.”

“Do men hate women there, and women men?”

“No, the meeting of the sexes is sweet, though shameful.  So poignant is the sweetness that the accompanying shame is ignored, with open eyes.  There is no hatred, or only among a few eccentric persons.”

“That shame surely must be the rudiment of our Lichstorm passion.  But now say—­why did you come here?”

“To meet with new experiences, perhaps.  The old ones no longer interested me.”

“How long have you been in this world?”

“This is the end of my fourth day.”

“Then tell me what you have seen and done during those four days.  You cannot have been inactive.”

“Great misfortunes have happened to me.”

He proceeded briefly to relate everything that had taken place from the moment of his first awakening in the scarlet desert.  Sullenbode listened, with half-closed eyes, nodding her head from time to time. only twice did she interrupt him.  After his description of Tydomin’s death, she said, speaking in a low voice—­“None of us women ought by right of nature to fall short of Tydomin in sacrifice.  For that one act of hers, I almost love her, although she brought evil to your door.”  Again, speaking of Gleameil, she remarked, “That grand-souled girl I admire the most of all.  She listened to her inner voice, and to nothing else besides.  Which of us others is strong enough for that?”

When his tale was quite over, Sullenbode said, “Does it not strike you, Maskull, that these women you have met have been far nobler than the men?”

“I recognise that.  We men often sacrifice ourselves, but only for a substantial cause.  For you women almost any cause will serve.  You love the sacrifice for its own sake, and that is because you are naturally noble.”

Turning her head a little, she threw him a smile so proud, yet so sweet, that he was struck into silence.

They tramped on quietly for some distance, and then he said, “Now you understand the sort of man I am.  Much brutality, more weakness, scant pity for anyone—­Oh, it has been a bloody journey!”

She laid her hand on his arm.  “I, for one, would not have it less rugged.”

“Nothing good can be said of my crimes.”

“To me you seem like a lonely giant, searching for you know not what....  The grandest that life holds....  You at least have no cause to look up to women.”