like the adder, would in all probability sting, and he therefore shrank from its trail, but without any feeling of special resentment.  The one had a poisoned tongue as the other had a poisoned fang, and it was well to leave them both alone.  Then had come that sudden fury of rage against all humanity, as he went out of Caermaen carrying the book that had been stolen from him by the enterprising Beit.  He shuddered as he though of how nearly he had approached the verge of madness, when his eyes filled with blood and the earth seemed to burn with fire.  He remembered how he had looked up to the horizon and the sky was blotched with scarlet; and the earth was deep red, with red woods and red fields.  There was something of horror in the memory, and in the vision of that wild night walk through dim country, when every shadow seemed a symbol of some terrible impending doom.  The murmur of the brook, the wind shrilling through the wood, the pale light flowing from the moldered trunks, and the picture of his own figure fleeing and fleeting through the shades; all these seemed unhappy things that told a story in fatal hieroglyphics.  And then the life and laws of the sunlight had passed away, and the resurrection and kingdom of the dead began.  Though his limbs were weary, he had felt his muscles grow strong as steel; a woman, one of the hated race, was beside him in the darkness, and the wild beast woke within him, ravening for blood and brutal lust; all the raging desires of the dim race from which he came assailed his heart.  The ghosts issued out from the weird wood and from the caves in the hills, besieging him, as he had imagined the spiritual legion besieging Caermaen, beckoning him to a hideous battle and a victory that he had never imagined in his wildest dreams.  And then out of the darkness the kind voice spoke again, and the kind hand was stretched out to draw him up from the pit.  It was sweet to think of that which he had found at last; the boy’s picture incarnate, all the passion and compassion of his longing, all the pity and love and consolation.  She, that beautiful passionate woman offering up her beauty in sacrifice to him, she was worthy indeed of his worship.  He remembered how his tears had fallen upon her breast, and how tenderly she had soothed him, whispering those wonderful unknown words that sang to his heart.  And she had made herself defenseless before him, caressing and fondling the body that had been so despised.  He exulted in the happy thought that he had knelt down on the ground before her, and had embraced her knees and worshipped.  The woman’s body had become his religion; he lay awake at night looking into the darkness with hungry eyes; wishing for a miracle, that the appearance of the so-desired form might be shaped before him.  And when he was alone in quiet places in the wood, he fell down again on his knees, and even on his face, stretching out vain hands in the air, as if they would feel her flesh.  His father noticed