Early evening. Another two hours and the train would stop to let him off. Dear, dear Rachel! He had wept tormented by a loneliness for her. Now he was coming to her with sadness. There had been another ride when he had come to her in a halloo of storms. Things change. The porter brushed him and removed his grips to the platform. The far lights of a village sprinkled themselves feebly in the darkness. This was where Rachel was waiting. Dorn stepped from the train. It became another world, lighted and human. He looked about the dingy little station. Rachel was walking toward him. "She looks strange and out of place," he thought. They embraced. Her kisses covering his lips delighted him unexpectedly. He found himself walking close to her in the night and feeling happy. They entered a darkened wooden house and Rachel led the way upstairs. "I can't talk, Erik." She held his hand against her cheek. "No, don't kiss me. Let me look at you. Sit over here. I must look at you." She laughed softly, but her eyes, unsmiling, stared at him. He remained silent. The sadness that had fallen upon him in the train returned now like a hurt in his heart. He had expected it to vanish at the sight of her. But her kisses had only hidden it. She came to his side after a pause and whispered gently, "Perhaps it would have been better if you hadn't come, dearest. I've become almost used to being alone." He embraced her and for the moment the sadness was hidden again. Rachel's hands crept avidly to his face, holding his cheeks with hot fingers. "Erik, oh, Erik, do you love me? I'm not afraid to hear. Tell me." "Yes, dear one. You are everything." "What makes you cry?" He kissed her lips. "I don't know," he whispered. "Only it's been so long." "Oh, you are so sad." Her voice had grown thin. Her eyes, dry, burning, haunted the dark room. She removed herself from his arms and stood with her hand in her hair. She looked at the dark sea that mirrored the night outside the window. Turning to him after a pause she murmured: "I had forgotten Erik Dorn was here." A sudden stride, the gesture of another Rachel, and she had thrown herself on the bed. "Oh, God!" she sobbed. "I knew, I knew!" Dorn, kneeling on the floor, pulled her head toward him. He whispered her name. Why was he sad, frightened? A thought was murmuring in him, "You must love her." "Rachel, I love you. Please. Your tears. Dearest, what has happened? Tell me." "Don't ask that." Her tears came anew. "But you come to me sad, as if I were no longer Rachel to you." The thought kept murmuring, "You must love her...." "Beautiful one," he said softly, "you're weeping because something has happened to you." The thought murmured, "because something has happened to you, not her." "No, no, Erik!" "Then why? If you loved me you would be happy." Absurd sentences. They would deceive no one.