She crouched down on the floor; the spectacle of that inert form was insupportable. Suddenly she lifted her head. From out the soft wonder of darkness, with its swinging worlds, Barry was coming toward her—all alight, as of old—looking as he always looked when he had something perfectly new to do. Then he passed on, and darkness dropped once more.
With all the appeal in her, she flung her spirit out upon the night. Power, power—everywhere out there—tremendous; terrifying power behind the illimitable stretches of space, behind the swinging worlds, veining the universe like lightning to eternal depths. If only she could force a foothold in its great conspiracy! She had traveled far, gone deep to find it, and had more than once felt it graze her being. Just around the corner, close it was—yet out of touch. All that was in her soul, or would ever be, stretched after it in this moment. She tore at her circumscribed human vision as at some fatally binding bandage across her eyes. Just to see clear once!
Her consciousness in its search swept out of its surroundings, beyond the barriers of flesh. The stillness of the night seemed charged with the light and force of swift traveling stars. Struggling with the legions of darkness and death, she stumbled suddenly into the kingdoms of the unseen.
The Doctor bent, in the gray light, over the bed. Nobody had called him; and, exhausted, he had slept throughout the night. He had come hurriedly, and stooped down to investigate the outstretched form.
He picked up one of the hands, and counted the pulse intently. A change passed over his face. He placed his ear to the heart. Then he slowly straightened up, and stood staring before him, in a trance of thought.
The dawn came peeping into the room. He bent over, and studied once more, without drawing breath, his patient’s appearance in its reflection. A stir near at hand caused him to turn sharply. He had forgotten the girl.
He concentrated upon her a puzzled look.
“I think,” he said, speaking slowly, as if groping through dazed layers of thought, “that you had better get up. He has pulled back!”
She started, then slowly raised herself from the floor. For a moment, she appeared to be stretching herself out of sleep; then he had an utterly odd sensation that she was putting out her hands in the red dawn toward some invisible thing.
THE END