Far down, at the other end, something was slowly coming toward him.
The gallery was very long and ill-lighted by the narrow, infrequent
windows, and he could not distinguish whom it was. He stood, however,
involuntarily waiting for it to approach him. But how slowly it came,
as one groping or one walking in a dream! Then, as it gradually
neared him, he saw that it was a woman, dimly outlined, but still
unmistakably a woman. He spoke, but there was no answer, nothing but
the echo of his voice through the gallery. Someone trying to play a
practical joke upon him! Perhaps it was Weir: it would be just like
her. He walked forward quickly, but before he had taken a dozen
steps the advancing figure came opposite one of the windows, and the
moonlight fell about it. Dartmouth started back and caught his breath
as if someone had struck him. For a moment his pulses stood still, and
sense seemed suspended. Then he walked quickly forward and stood in
front of her.

"Sionèd!" he said, in a low voice which thrilled through the room.
"Sionèd!" He put out his hand and took hers. It was ice-cold, and its
contact chilled him to the bone; but his clasp grew closer and his
eyes gazed into hers with passionate longing.

"I am dead," she said. "I am dead, and I am so cold." She drew closer
and peered up into his face. "I have found you at last," she went on,
"but I wandered so far. There was no nook or corner of Eternity in
which I did not search. But although we went together, we were hurled
to the opposite poles of space before our spiritual eyes had met, and
an unseen hand directed us ever apart. I was alone, alone, in a great,
gray, boundless land, with but the memory of those brief moments of
happiness to set at bay the shrieking host of regrets and remorse
and repentance which crowded about me. I floated on and on and on for