He had got thus far, his eyes fixed upon the slender white figure rapidly disappearing from his view, when with a tremendous crash his foothold gave way and he fell with fearful force into the ditch beneath, his head striking one of the fallen bricks.  And after that, all things were blank and his soul wandered into shadowland and tasted of the pains of death.

* * * * *

From the first break of day on that Tuesday when Halcyone awoke she was conscious that some sorrow was near her.  Every sense of hers, every instinct, so highly trained by her years of communion with Nature seemed always to warn her of coming events.

She was restless—­a state of being quite at variance with her usual calm.  The air was sultry and, though no rain fell, ominous clouds gathered and faint thunder pealed afar off.

“What is it?  What is it, God?” she asked of the sky.  But no answer came, and at last she went out into the park and towards the tree.  She had made all her simple preparations—­everything that she must take had been put into a small bag and was safely waiting in the secret passage, ready for her to fetch on the morrow.

Cheiron, she knew, had gone to London.  Had they not said good-by on the evening before?  And his last words had made her smile happily at the time.

“Things are changing, Halcyone,” he had said, with the whimsical raising of his left penthouse brow.  “Perhaps you will not want to learn Greek much longer with your crabbed old Cheiron in his cave.”

And she had flung her arms round his neck and buried her face in his silver beard, and assured him she would always want to learn—­all her life.  But now she felt a twinge of sadness—­she would indeed miss him, her dear old master, and he, too, would be lonely without her.  Then she fought with herself.  Feelings of depression were never permitted to stay for a moment, and she looked away into the trees for comfort—­but only a deathly stillness and a sullen roll of distant thunder answered, and left her uncomforted.

And then some force stronger than her will seemed to drive her back to the house, and to the long gallery, and just at the very moment when she had passed beyond her lover’s sight it was as if something chased her, so that she ran the last few yards, and paused not until she stood in front of Aphrodite’s shrine.

It would be difficult to carry the marble head with the other few things she proposed to take, but none the less was the necessity imperative.  She could not be married without the presence of her beloved mother to bless her.

As she lifted her goddess out, with her silken wrappings, the first flash of the nearing storm lit up the dark room with lurid flame.

Halcyone shivered.  It was the one aspect of Nature with which she was out of harmony.  When thunder rolled and lightning quivered, her vitality seemed to desert her and she experienced what in her came nearest to fear.