Since the evening of his coming there had been no scenes. He was grateful for this. But the eyes of Rachel sometimes haunted him at night as she lay asleep beside him. What spoke in her eyes? He felt calm when alone, at peace with himself. But at night while she slept he would become sleepless and a sadness would enter him. Thoughts he did not seem to be thinking would move through his head. "Things pass. Years pass. The sea and the stars remain the same. But men and women change. Life eats into men and women--eats things away from them...." In his sadness there would come to him a memory of Anna. Thoughts of Anna and Rachel would mingle themselves.... Anna had once lain beside him like this. He remembered now. Her body was different from Rachel's--softer, warmer ... a woman named Anna had lived with him. Now a woman named Rachel. And to-morrow, what? There were yesterdays. These were not sad. Things already dead were not so sad. But things that are to die.... His heart would grow weak, seeming to dissolve. Something unspoken in the night. Tears in his heart. Calm in his thought. He would figure it out sometime. His words were alert little busy-bodies. They could follow things into difficult crevices. But was there anything to figure out? He was growing old and a to-morrow was haunting him. Some day he would close his eyes slowly and in the slow closing of his eyes the world would end. Erik Dorn would have ended. Was there such a thing as ending? Yes, things were always ending. Now he was different than the night he had lain beside Rachel and whispered, "You have given me wings." But how? He felt the same. Change came like that. Leaving one the same. He would write things from Europe that would startle. He could write.... But, something unspoken in the night. He must say it to himself.... "You must love her...." Then that was it. He no longer loved her. He lay listening to her breathing. An end to his love. Preposterous notion! How, since the thought of parting from her wrenched at his heart? "If I went away from Rachel I would die." Unquestionably sincere.... "I'd die." Not, of course, die. But feel death. Yet, there was something changed. But a man doesn't remain an ecstatic lover. There comes a time. Well, he loved her like this--quietly, happily, and if he went away from her he would feel an end had come to his life. The other love had been words flying in his head. Nice to have felt as he had. But life--practical, material rush of hours. Words had flown in his head once. He smiled. "Wings, what are they?" He remembered having spoken and thought a great deal about wings. Now the idea seemed somewhat absurd. They were not a part of life. Inventions. An invention. A phrase to explain an unusual state of physical and mental excitement.... Sleep intruded and the sadness melted out of him. As he closed his eyes his hand reached dreamily for Rachel and lay upon her shoulder.