was someone. He was the man Betty Silver had come to meet.

But with the sight of her face came reaction.

Her face was pale and cold and hard. She did not speak or smile. As she
drew near she looked at him, and there was that in her look which set a
chill wind blowing through the world and cast a veil across the sun.

And in this bleak world they stood silent and motionless while eons
rolled by.

Betty was the first to speak.

"I'm late," she said.

John searched in his brain for words, and came empty away. He shook his
head dumbly.

"Shall we sit down?" said Betty.

John indicated silently the sandstone rock on which he had been
communing with himself.

They sat down. A sense of being preposterously and indecently big
obsessed John. There seemed no end to him. Wherever he looked, there
were hands and feet and legs. He was a vast blot on the face of the
earth. He glanced out of the corner of his eye at Betty. She was gazing
out to sea.

He dived into his brain again. It was absurd! There must be something