With unseeing eyes Echo gazed straight ahead rebuilding from her dream fabric a tragedy of the desert, in which the two men who had played so great a part in her life were the actors.
"It seems," she told, "that I was in the desert, such a vast, terrible desert, where the little dust devils eddied and swirled, and the merciless sun beat down until it shriveled up every growing thing."
Polly nodded her head sagely.
"That's the way the desert looks—and no water."
Echo paid no heed to the interruption. Her face became wan and haggard, as in her mind's eye she saw the weary waste of waterless land quiver and swim under the merciless sun. Not a tree, not a blade of grass, not a sign of life broke the monotony of crumbling cliffs and pinnacled rocks. Onward and ever onward stretched yellow ridges and alkali-whitened ravines, blinding the eye and parching the throat.
"Then I saw a man staggering toward me," she continued; "his face was white and drawn, his lips cracked and parched—now and then he would stumble and fall, and lie there on his face in the hot sand, digging into it with his bony fingers seeking for water."
Echo shut her eyes as if to blot out the picture. Its reality almost overpowered her.
"Suddenly he raised his eyes to mine," she resumed, after a pause. "It was Dick."
In her excitement she had arisen, stretching out her arms as if to ward off an apparition.
"He tried to call me. I saw his lips move, framing my name. Dragging himself to his feet, he came toward me with his arms outstretched. Then another form appeared between us fighting to keep him back. They fought there under the burning sun in the hot dust of the desert until at last one was crushed to earth. The victor raised his face to mine, and—it was Jack."