"You make it harder for me when you say nothing."
"Don't keep me in the dark," she pleaded. "Don't send me back alone into the dark. It's being alone that hurts."
"God keep me from telling her. God keep me from letting her know of my love. So it is best."
Again that phrase of his which had come back through Arsdale's lips to scorch him.
"I must go, and if I can, I will come back."
"I mean nothing to you if I cannot help you now," she said steadily. "If the road were smooth to you do you think I could tell you what I have? It is your need--it is your need that has given me the strength."
"As long as I remember anything, I shall remember that."
"You remember the walk straight through things?"
"I have just taken it again--alone. I have pressed straight through."
There was a pause of a few seconds. Then,
"That is a hard thing for a woman to do."
There was a longer silence. Then she said tenderly,
"You look very tired. This day has been heavy to you. Go up-stairs to your room and rest. Then in the morning--why, in the morning we may both see clearer."
"I can rest nowhere. There is no rest left to me."
He seized her hand and pressed it. Then he turned abruptly towards the hall. She watched him with a new fright. He paused at the door, his eyes drawn back to her against his will. She was standing there quite helpless, a growing pallor sweeping over her cheeks that so lately had been as richly red as rose leaves.
She stood before him like a marble statue. There were no tears.
"I have been very bold," she murmured. "I can never forgive myself that."
"Perhaps you had better go at once, Peter Donaldson," she said.
"God keep you," he managed to say. "God keep you forever and ever."
He stumbled to the hall, found his hat, and staggered through the door.
At the hedge a shadow stole out to meet him. It was an ambitious young reporter.
"Damn you, no!" shouted Donaldson. "Donaldson is dead!"
Donaldson toiled up the dark staircase leading to Barstow's laboratory. To him it was as though he were fighting his way through deep water reaching twenty fathoms above his head. The air was just as cold as green water; it contained scarcely more life. He felt the same sense of clammy, lurking things, unknown things, such as crawl along the slimy bottoms where rotting hulks lie. He was impelled here by the same sort of fascination which is said to lead murderers back to their victims, yet it seemed to be the only place where he would be able to think at all. It was getting back to the beginning--to the source--where he could start fresh. It was here, and here alone, that he could write his letter to her. Perhaps here he could make something out of the chaos of his thoughts.