the impression she brought away from her breathless skimming was that
she had encountered the shock of a tremendous masculine force.

Her head fell back upon the cushions, and she lost herself in the vague
wonder the book aroused. Life was there--the life of the flesh, of vivid
sensation, of experience that ran hot and swift. The active principle,
so strong in the predestined artist, stirred suddenly in her breast, and
she felt the instant of blind terror which comes with the realisation of
the fleeting possibilities of earth. Outside--beyond her--existence in
its multitudinous forms, its diversity of colour, swept on like some
vast caravan from which she had been detached and set apart. Lying there
she heard the call of it, that tremendous music which shook through her
and loosened a caged voice within herself. Her own poetry became for her
but a little part of the tumultuous, passionate instinct for life within
her--for life not as it was in its reality but as she saw it
transfigured and enkindled by the imagination that lives in dreams.

Suddenly from the darkened silence of the house below a thin sound rose
trembling, and then, gaining strength, penetrated into the closed
chambers. Uncle Percival was at his flute again; he had arisen in the
night to resume his impassioned piping; and, rising hurriedly, Laura lit
her candle and went out into the hall, where a streak of light beneath
Angela's door ran like a white thread across the blackness. Listening a
moment, she heard inside the nervous pacing to and fro of tired yet
restless feet, and after a short hesitation she turned the knob and
entered.

"Oh, Aunt Angela, did the flute wake you?" she asked.

For answer the long white figure stopped its frantic movement and turned