She smiled, very thinly. "You think that nothing has happened to me? You do not know the curse of living here, alone and haunted. You do not understand the sense I have of something tightening and thickening about me; tightening and thickening inside of me, too." Her hand touched her breast, and trembled. "I have said that I have not gone mad. That does not mean that I shall never go mad." "Do not be resigned to any such idea," said Lanark, almost roughly, so earnest was he in trying to win her from the thought. "Madness may come--in the good time of those who may wish it. My mind will die. And things will feed upon it, as buzzards would feed upon my dead body." * * * * * Her thin smile faded away. Lanark felt his throat growing as dry as lime, and cleared it noisily. Silence was still dense around them. He asked her, quite formally, what she found to do. "My stepfather had many books, most of them old," was her answer. "At night I light one lamp--I must husband my oil--and sit well within its circle of light. Nothing ever comes into that circle. And I read books. Every night I read also a chapter from a Bible that belonged to my old aunty. When I sleep, I hold that Bible against my heart." He rose nervously, and she rose with him. "Must you go so soon?" she asked, like a courteous hostess. Lanark bit his mustache. "Enid Mandifer, come out of here with me." "I can't." "You can. You shall. My horse will carry both of us." She shook her head, and the smile was back, sad and tender this time. "Perhaps you cannot understand, and I know that I cannot tell you. But if I stay here, the evil stays here with me. If I go, it will follow and infect the world. Go away alone." She meant it, and he did not know what to say or do. "I shall go," he agreed finally, with an air of bafflement, "but I shall be back." Suddenly he kissed her. Then he turned and limped rapidly away, raging at the feeling of defeat that had him by the back of the neck. Then, as he reached his horse he found himself glad to be leaving the spot, even though Enid Mandifer remained behind, alone. He cursed with a vehemence that made the roan flinch, untied the halter and mounted. Away he rode, to the magnified clatter of hoofs. He looked back, not once but several times. Each time he saw Enid Mandifer, smaller and smaller, standing beside the bench under the naked tree. She was gazing, not along the road after him, but at the spot where he had mounted his horse. It was as though he had vanished from her sight at that point. Lanark damned himself as one who retreated before an enemy, but he felt that it was not as simple as that. Helplessness, not fear, had routed him. He was leaving Enid Mandifer, but again he promised in his heart to return. [Illustration: "He was leaving Enid Mandifer, but he promised in his heart to return."]