His hand, creeping, groping, closed on the neck of the 'cello leaning by
the bed. He laughed.

Oh, yes, he would stop her from going down there; he would hold her,
just where she was on the dark stair nerveless, breathless, as long as
he liked, if he liked he would bring her back, cringing, begging.

He drew the bow, and laughed higher and louder yet to hear the booming
discord rocking in upon him from the shadows. Swaying from side to side,
he lashed the hollow creature to madness. They came in the press of the
gale, marching, marching, the wild, dark pageant of his fathers, nearer
and nearer through the moon-struck night.

"Tell me _what_?" he laughed. "_What_?"

And abruptly he slept, sprawled crosswise on the covers, half-clothed,
dishevelled, triumphant.

* * * * *

It was not the same night, but another; whether the next or the next but
one, or two, Christopher can not say. But he was out of doors.

He had escaped from the house at dusk; he knew that.

He had run away, through the hedge and down the back side of the hill,
torn between the two, the death, warm and red like life, and the birth,
pale, chill, and inexorable as death.