apathy which was only broken, at intervals, by an outburst of passionate revolt. Now, in some inexplicable fashion, the burden seemed to have slipped from her shoulders, and the feeling of depression was replaced by one of uplifting, of unreasonable exhilaration. The[17] sensation was vaguely familiar to her, and, groping for a clue, she found its parallel in the preliminary action of ether, which she had taken a year or so before. Through the growing, not unpleasurable, dizziness which came upon her thus, the man's voice made its way. [17] "Let me try to explain myself more clearly," he was saying. "Something—God, or chance, or destiny, or whatever you choose to call it—led me around that last turn of the road at a moment when, if I'm not mistaken, a fellow being came to the snapping-point of self-control. I can't think our meeting without significance. I believe I was sent to help you. The question is, whether you're broad and generous and courageous enough to take for granted a formal introduction, and the gradual evolution of acquaintance into intimacy, up to the moment when you would naturally turn to me, as your most loyal friend, for sympathy. And I think you will do that." Once more Helen looked at him. Her mind was curiously clouded, but the sensation gave her no uneasiness. Instead, she felt that she was smiling. "I think you will do it," he repeated. He was holding out his hand with the confidence of one who knows it will be accepted, and, after a moment, she laid her own within it. His fingers closed firmly on hers, and, of a sudden, the world drew in about her, graying, as under the touch of fog. Her last perception was of his eyes fixed[18] full on hers with an expression of quiet amusement. [18] "I'm faint," she murmured, "I am—faint—" When she came to herself, his eyes still held her. "In the strange, unknowable book of Fate," he said, "it was written, from the beginning of time, that you and I should meet upon a dull hillside in late November, and—and that all that has been should be!" Before she had time to answer, he had left her. Briefly she stood, dizzy and perplexed, and then, after one great leap, her heart seemed to shudder and stand still. She was in the sordid little living-room of the Kingsbridge
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