"Once more—oh, answer me! Tell me my name!"
Ed's steps were heard on the oilclothed portion of the staircase.
"My name—oh, my name!" she cried in an agony of suspense…. "Oh, they will not wait for me! They have lighted the torches—they run up and down the shore with torches—oh, cannot you see me?…"
Suddenly she dashed to the chair on which the litter of linings and tissue-paper lay. She caught up a double handful and crammed them on the fire. They caught and flared. There was a call upon the stairs, and the sound of somebody mounting in haste.
"Once—once only—my name!"
The soul of the Bacchante rioted, struggled to escape from her eyes. Then as the door was flung open, she heard, and gave a terrifying shout of recognition.
"I hear—I almost hear—but once more…. IO! Io, Io, Io!"
Ed, in the doorway, stood for one moment agape; the next, ignorant of the full purport of his own words—ignorant that though man may come westwards he may yet bring his worship with him—ignorant that to make the Dream the Reality and the Reality the Dream is Heaven's dreadfullest favour—and ignorant that, that Edge once crossed, there is no return to the sanity and sweetness and light that are only seen clearly in the moment when they are lost for ever—he had dashed down the stairs crying in a voice hoarse and high with terror:
"She's mad! She's mad!"