On the last day she told him that they would not meet again.  Life had given to her all and more than all she had dared ask for.  He must go back to his work in the world, to the high endeavor that was laid upon him as an obligation of his power, and now of their love.  He must write her; she could not do without that, now; but guardedly, for other eyes than hers must read his words to her.

“Think what it is going to be to me,” she said, “to follow your course; to be able to pray for you, fighting.  I shall take all the papers.  And any which haven’t your name in shall be burned at once!  How I shall be jealous even of your public who love and admire you!  But you have left me no room for any other jealousy....”

“I am coming back to you,” he said doggedly, at the final moment of parting.  “Sometime, Camilla.”

“You will be here always, in the darkness, with me.  And I shall love my blindness because it shuts out anything but you,” she said.

Io rode with him to the station.  On the way they discussed ways and means, the household arrangements when Io should have to leave, the finding of a companion, who should be at once nurse, secretary, and amanuensis for Royce Melvin’s music.

“How she will sing now!” said Io.

As they drew near to the station, she put her hand on his horse’s bridle.

“Did I do wrong to send for you, Cousin Billy?” she asked.

He turned to her a visage transfigured.

“You needn’t answer,” she said quickly.  “I should know, anyway.  It’s her happiness I’m thinking of.  It can’t have been wrong to give so much happiness, for the rest of her life.”

“The rest of her life,” he echoed, in a hushed accent of dread.

While Enderby was getting his ticket, Io waited on the front platform.  A small, wiry man came around the corner of the station, glanced at her, and withdrew.  Io had an uneasy notion of having seen him before somewhere.  But where, and when?  Certainly the man was not a local habitant.  Had his presence, then, any significance for her or hers?  Enderby returned, and the two stood in the hard morning sunlight beneath the broad sign inscribed with the station’s name.

The stranger appeared from behind a freight-car on a siding, and hurried up to within a few yards of them.  From beneath his coat he slipped a blackish oblong.  It gave forth a click, and, after swift manipulation, a second click.  Enderby started toward the snap-shotter who turned and ran.

“Do you know that man?” he asked, whirling upon Io.

A gray veil seemed to her drawn down over his features.  Or was it a mist of dread upon Io’s own vision?

“I have seen him before,” she answered, groping.

“Who is he?”

Memory flashed one of its sudden and sure illuminations upon her:  a Saturday night at The House With Three Eyes; this little man coming in with Tertius Marrineal; later, peering into the flowerful corner where she sat with Banneker.