“Poor Sullenbode!” said Gangnet sighing.

“What!  You knew her?”

“I know her through you.  By mourning for a noble woman, you show your own nobility.  I think all women are noble.”

“There may be millions of noble women, but there’s only one Sullenbode.”

“If Sullenbode can exist,” said Gangnet, “the world cannot be a bad place.”

“Change the subject....  The world’s hard and cruel, and I am thankful to be leaving it.”

“On one point, though, you both agree,” said Krag, smiling evilly.  “Pleasure is good, and the cessation of pleasure is bad.”

Gangnet glanced at him coldly.  “We know your peculiar theories, Krag.  You are very fond of them, but they are unworkable.  The world could not go on being, without pleasure.”

“So Gangnet thinks!” jeered Krag.

They came to the end of the wood, and found themselves overlooking a little cliff.  At the foot of it, about fifty feet below, a fresh series of lakes and forests commenced.  Barey appeared to be one big mountain slope, built by nature into terraces.  The lake along whose border they had been travelling was not banked at the end, but overflowed to the lower level in half a dozen beautiful, threadlike falls, white and throwing off spray.  The cliff was not perpendicular, and the men found it easy to negotiate.

At the base they entered another wood.  Here it was much denser, and they had nothing but trees all around them.  A clear brook rippled through the heart of it; they followed its bank.

“It has occurred to me,” said Maskull, addressing Gangnet, “that Alppain may be my death.  Is that so?”

“These trees don’t fear Alppain, so why should you?  Alppain is a wonderful, life-bringing sun.”

“The reason I ask is—­I’ve seen its afterglow, and it produced such violent sensations that a very little more would have proved too much.”

“Because the forces were evenly balanced.  When you see Alppain itself, it will reign supreme, and there will be no more struggling of wills inside you.”

“And that, I may tell you beforehand, Maskull,” said Krag, grinning, “is Crystalman’s trump card.”

“How do you mean?”

“You’ll see.  You’ll renounce the world so eagerly that you’ll want to stay in the world merely to enjoy your sensations.”

Gangnet smiled.  “Krag, you see, is hard to please.  You must neither enjoy, nor renounce.  What are you to do?”

Maskull turned toward Krag.  “It’s very odd, but I don’t understand your creed even yet.  Are you recommending suicide?”

Krag seemed to grow sallower and more repulsive every minute.  “What, because they have left off stroking you?” he exclaimed, laughing and showing his discoloured teeth.

“Whoever you are, and whatever you want,” said Maskull, “you seem very certain of yourself.”

“Yes, you would like me to blush and stammer like a booby, wouldn’t you!  That would be an excellent way of destroying lies.”