V

THE SPIRAL ROAD

There can be nothing good, as we know it, nor anything evil, as we
know it, in the eye of the Omnipresent and the
Omniscient.--_Oriental Proverb._


I

THE STRAND OF DREAMS

"I must see him if only for a minute. I can't go back to the city after
coming so far. Please--" but the girl's face disappeared and the rickety
door, which had been opened on a chain, was slammed after this
imperative speech, and Gerald Shannon found himself staring
exasperatedly at its rusty exterior. To have travelled on foot such a
distance only to be turned away like a beggar enraged him. Nor was the
prospect of returning over the path which had brought him to Karospina's
house a cheering one. He turned and saw that a low, creeping mist had
obliterated every vestige of the trail across the swamp lands. There was
no sun, and the twilight of a slow yellow day in late September would
soon, in complicity with the fog, leave him totally adrift on this
remote strand--he could hear the curving fall and hiss of the breakers,
the monotonous rumour of the sea. So he was determined to face
Karospina, even if he had to force his way into the house.

Two hours earlier, at the little railway station, they had informed him
that the road was easy flatland for the greater part of the way. He had