Yet when the woman whispered "Come!" the friend of Wilfrid Strauss did not disobey. The wind was still clawing at the window-pane as they entered her room. It was only when his eyes were closing in sleep that he saw moonlight invade the room and heard the wind wailing in the last horizon. When he awoke the room was aflood with moonlight. It flowed over the bed making the sheets and counterpane cloth of silver. The walls dropped from the ceiling in straight falls of frozen mist, the floor shone like a beaten metal. It seemed to him that a voice came upon the path of the moonrays, a voice not of sound but light, saying: Go! If it was the mother who had seemed to be dead or perhaps--could it be?--that woman he had met once in the central gloom of Doomington and whom he could so clearly envision now, he could not decide--that woman who had long ago taken him to her bed on the night when he had fled from his early terrors. Or perhaps it was none other than his own voice--for he was about to break free at last--insistently saying, Go, do not delay! It was with no sense of shame that he rose from the bed and dressed quietly in that wizard room. In this world of cool clear beauty, at this time of vision, shame had no place. Had he departed from beauty, from vision? He would return thither again. Kate's hair lay over her face as she slept. He bent and smoothed her hair aside and moved away quietly. He opened the front door of the house and walked along the deserted pavement of Carnford Avenue. Walking was not swift enough, it was too deliberate. He ran, his limbs loosely swinging over the dark streets. He ran effortlessly like a deer glimpsed through woods. He had no consciousness of direction and though he ran far he was not fatigued. No thought kept pace beside him beyond the knowledge of his running. A policeman appeared suddenly from the gloom of a shop entrance. He brought down his hand menacingly on Philip's shoulder. Philip stopped dead. "Just a tick, my fine young feller!" the policeman exclaimed. "Where are you coming from?" "From Babylon!" Philip shouted. "Let me go! Get out of my way!" "B--b--babel--what?" the policeman stammered. His upraised arm fell to his side. The lad was fifty yards away, once more running swiftly and evenly. Yet no! He wasn't a burglar! It wasn't that! He wasn't carrying anything, and he certainly wasn't frightened! Drunk? Oh no, not drunk! Well then, what the 'ell? If it came to anybody being frightened...! He lifted his helmet, passed his hand over his hair and withdrew again into the shop entrance.