"The heart has its reasons," says Pascal, "that reason can not understand." Swiftly now the time draws on, on towards that final journey which Milton Rhodes and I are to make, and to make with glad hearts, that journey from which there is never to be a return, that journey back to another world, a world where there is no sun, no moon, no skies, no stars--a world where there is neither day nor night. Vale. William Barrington Carter Chapter 1 THE MYSTERIOUS VISITOR The forenoon of that momentous August day (how momentous time, like unto some spirit-shaking vision, was soon and swiftly to show us) had been bright and sunny. Snowy cumuli sailed along before a breeze from the north. When the wind comes from that quarter here in Seattle, it means good weather. But there was something sinister about this one. As the day advanced, the clouds increased in number and volume; by noon the whole sky was overcast. And now? It was midafternoon now; a gale from the south was savagely flinging and dashing the rain against the windows, and it had become so dark that Milton Rhodes had turned on one of the library-lamps. There was something strange about that darkness which so suddenly had fallen upon us. "Too fierce to last long, Bill," observed Milton Rhodes, raising his head and listening to the beating of the rain and the roar of the wind. He arose from his chair, went over to one of the southern windows and stood looking out into the storm. "Coming down in sheets, Bill. It can't keep this up for very long." I went over and stood beside him. "No," I returned; "it can't keep this up. But, rain or sun, our trip is spoiled now." "For today, yes. But there is tomorrow, Bill." But, in the sense that Milton Rhodes meant, there was to be no tomorrow: at the very moment, in the midst of the roar and the rage of the elements, Destiny spoke, in the ring of a telephone-bell--Destiny, she who is wont to make such strange sport with the lives of men. I sometimes wonder if stranger sport any man has ever known than she was to make with ours. "Wonder who the deuce 'tis now," muttered Milton Rhodes as he left the room to answer the call. I remained there at the window. Of that fateful conversation over the wire, I heard not so much as a single syllable. I must have fallen into a deep reverie or something; at any rate, the next thing I knew there was a sudden voice, and Milton Rhodes was standing beside me again, a quizzical expression on his dark features. "What is it, Bill?" he smiled. "In love at last, old _tillicum_? Didn't hear me until I spoke the third time." "Gosh," I said, "this is getting dreadful! But--" "Well?" "What is it?" "Oh, a visitor." I regarded him for a moment in silence. "You don't seem very enthusiastic," I observed.