much as glancing at him, closing the door behind her.

She reached her table in the outer office and sat down, gazing out of the
window. The face of the world--the river, the mills, and the bridge--was
changed, tinged with a new and unreal quality. She, too, must be changed.
She wasn't, couldn't be the same person who had entered that room of
Ditmar's earlier in the afternoon! Mr. Caldwell made a commonplace
remark, she heard herself answer him. Her mind was numb, only her body
seemed swept by fire, by emotions--emotions of fear, of anger, of desire
so intense as to make her helpless. And when at length she reached out
for a sheet of carbon paper her hand trembled so she could scarcely hold
it. Only by degrees was she able to get sufficient control of herself to
begin her copying, when she found a certain relief in action--her hands
flying over the keys, tearing off the finished sheets, and replacing them
with others. She did not want to think, to decide, and yet she
knew--something was trying to tell her that the moment for decision had
come. She must leave, now. If she stayed on, this tremendous adventure
she longed for and dreaded was inevitable. Fear and fascination battled
within her. To run away was to deny life; to remain, to taste and savour
it. She had tasted it--was it sweet?--that sense of being swept away,
engulfed by an elemental power beyond them both, yet in them both? She
felt him drawing her to him, and she struggling yet inwardly longing to
yield. And the scarlet stain on his handkerchief--when she thought of
that her blood throbbed, her face burned.

At last the door of the inner office opened, and Ditmar came out and
stood by the rail. His voice was queer, scarcely recognizable.

"Miss Bumpus--would you mind coming into my room a moment, before you
leave?" he said.