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was nothing,” she whispered — then defiantly — “nothing. I don’t know what you mean.”
“Ruth!” I spoke sharply now, in my own perplexity. “You do know. You must tell us — for his sake.” I pointed toward Ventnor.
She drew a long breath.
“You’re right — of course,” she said unsteadily. “Only I— I thought maybe I could fight it out myself. But you’ll have to know it — there’s a taint upon me.”
I caught in Drake’s swift glance the echo of my own thrill of apprehension for her sanity.
“Yes,” she said, now quietly. “Some new and alien thing within my heart, my brain, my soul. It came to me from Norhala when we rode the flying block, and — he — sealed upon me when I was in-his”— again she crimsoned, “embrace.”
And as we gazed at her, incredulously:
“A thing that urges me to forget you two — and Martin — and all the world I’ve known. That tries to pull me from you — from all — to drift untroubled in some vast calm filled with an ordered ecstasy of peace. And whose calling I want, God help me, oh, so desperately to heed!
“It whispered to me first,” she said, “from Norhala — when she put her arm around me. It whispered and then seemed to float from her and cover me like — like a veil, and from head to foot. It was a quietness and peace that held within it a happiness at one and the same time utterly tranquil and utterly free.
“I seemed to be at the doorway to unknown ecstasies — and the life I had known only a dream — and you, all of you — even Martin, dreams within a dream. You weren’t — real — and you did not — matter.”
“Hypnotism,” muttered Drake, as she paused.
“No.” She shook her head. “No — more than that. The wonder of it grew — and grew. I thrilled with it. I remember nothing of that ride, saw nothing — except that once through the peace enfolding me pierced warning that Martin was in peril, and I broke through to see him clutching Norhala and to see floating up in her eyes death for him.
“And I saved him — and again forgot. Then, when I saw that beautiful, flaming Shape — I felt no terror, no fear — only a tremendous — joyous — anticipation, as though — as though —” She faltered, hung her head, then leaving that sentence unfinished, whispered: “and when — it — lifted me it was as though I had come at last out of some endless black ocean of despair into the full sun of paradise.”
“Ruth!” cried Drake, and at the pain in his cry she winced.
“Wait,” she said, and held up a little, tremulous hand. “You asked — and now you must listen.”
She was silent; and when once more she spoke her voice was low, curiously rhythmic; her eyes rapt:
“I was free — free from every human fetter of fear or sorrow or love or hate; free even of hope — for what was there to hope for when everything desirable was mine? And I was elemental; one with the eternal things yet fully conscious that I was — I.
“It was as though I were the shining shadow of a star afloat upon the breast of some still and hidden woodland pool; as though I were a little wind dancing among the mountain tops; a mist whirling down a quiet glen; a shimmering lance of the aurora pulsing in the high solitudes.
“And there was music — strange and wondrous music and terrible, but not terrible to me — who was part of it. Vast chords and singing themes that rang like clusters of little swinging stars and harmonies that were like the very voice of infinite law resolving within itself all discords. And all — all — passionless, yet — rapturous.
“Out of the Thing that held me, out from its fires pulsed vitality — a flood of inhuman energy in which I was bathed. And it was as though this energy were — reassembling me, fitting me even closer to the elemental things, changing me fully into them.
“I felt the little tendrils touching, caressing — then came the shots. Awakening was — dreadful, a struggling back from drowning. I saw Martin — blasted. I drove the — the spell away from me, tore it away.
“And, O Walter — Dick — it hurt — it hurt — and for a breath before I ran to him it was like — like coming from a world in which there was no disorder, no sorrow, no doubts, a rhythmic, harmonious world of light and music, into — into a world that was like a black and dirty kitchen.
“And it’s there,” her voice rose, hysterically. “It’s still within me — whispering, whispering; urging me away from you, from Martin, from every human thing; bidding me give myself up, surrender my humanity.
“Its seal,” she sobbed. “No — HIS seal! An alien consciousness sealed within me, that tries to make the human me a slave — that waits to overcome my will — and if I surrender gives me freedom, an incredible freedom — but makes me, being still human, a — monster.”
She hid her face in her hands, quivering.
“If I could sleep,” she wailed. “But I’m afraid to sleep. I think I shall never sleep again. For sleeping how do I know what I may be when I wake?”
I caught Drake’s eye; he nodded. I slipped my hand down into the medicine-case, brought forth a certain potent and tasteless combination of drugs which I carry upon explorations.
I dropped a little into her cup, then held it to her lips. Like a child, unthinking, she obeyed and drank.
“But I’ll not surrender.” Her eyes were tragic. “Never think it! I can win — don’t you know I can?”
“Win?” Drake dropped down beside her, drew her toward him. “Bravest girl I’ve known — of course you’ll win. And remember this — nine-tenths of what you’re thinking now is purely over-wrought nerves and weariness. You’ll win — and we’ll win, never doubt it.”
“I don’t,” she said. “I know it — oh, it will be hard — but I will — I will —”
CHAPTER XV
THE HOUSE OF NORHALA
Her eyes closed, her body relaxed; the potion had done its work quickly. We laid her beside Ventnor on the pile of silken stuffs, covered them both with a fold, then looked at each other long and silently — and I wondered whether my face was as grim and drawn as his.
“It appears,” he said at last, curtly, “that it’s up to you and me for powwow quick. I hope you’re not sleepy.”
“I am not,” I answered as curtly; the edge of nerves in his manner of questioning doing nothing to soothe my own, “and even if I were I would hardly expect to put all the burden of the present problem upon you by going to sleep.”
“For God’s sake don’t be a prima donna,” he flared up. “I meant no offense.”
“I’m sorry, Dick,” I said. “We’re both a little jumpy, I guess.” He nodded; gripped my hand.
“It wouldn’t be so bad,” he muttered, “if all four of us were all right. But Ventnor’s down and out, and God alone knows for how long. And Ruth — has all the trouble we have and some special ones of her own. I’ve an idea”— he hesitated —“an idea that there was no exaggeration in that story she told — an idea that if anything she underplayed it.”
“I, too,” I replied somberly. “And to me it is the most hideous phase of this whole situation — and for reasons not all connected with Ruth,” I added.
“Hideous!” he repeated. “Unthinkable — yet all this is unthinkable. And still — it is! And Ventnor — coming back — that way. Like a lost soul finding voice.
“Was