"Listen, Paula Linster, you have been chosen for the most exalted task ever offered to living woman. The Great Soul is not yet in the world, and He must come soon!... It is you who have inspired this--you, of trained will; a mind of stirring evolution, every thought so essentially feminine; you of virgin body and a soul lit with stars! You are brave. The burden is easy to one of your courage, and I should keep you free from the world--free from the burns and the whips of this thinking animal, the world. All that I have won from the world, her mysteries, her enchantments, I shall give you, all that is big and brave and wise in song and philosophy and nature, I shall bring to your feet, as a hunter with trophies to his beloved--all that a man, wise and tender, can think and express to quicken the splendor of fertility----" Paula was now fully conscious--her self restored to her. The Yesterday and the To-day rose before her mind in startling parallel. Her primary dread was that she might lose control again before Bellingham was put away. The super-devilishness of his plan--hiding a blasphemy in the white robe of a spiritual consecration--had changed him in her sight to a ravening beast. The thing which he believed would cause her eagerly to bestow upon him the riches of her threefold life had lifted her farther out of his power that moment, than even she realized. Bellingham had over-reached. She was filled with inner nausea.... The idea of escape, the thought of crippling the magician's power over her forever--in the stress of this, she grew cold.... She was nearest the door. It stood ajar, as when she had entered. "Meditation--in the place I have prepared," he was whispering, "meditation and the poetic life, rarest of fruits, purest of white garments--cleansed with sunlight and starlight, you and I, Paula Linster,--the sources of creation which have been revealed to me--for you! Wonderful woman--all the vitalities of heaven shall play upon you! We shall bring the new god into the world----" She pushed back from his arms and faced him--white-lipped and loathing. "You father a son of mine," she said, in the doorway. "You--are dead--the man's soul is dead within you--you whited sepulchre!" His face altered like a white wall which an earthquake disorders at the base. White rock turned to blown paper; the man-mask rubbed out; Havoc featured upon an erect thing, with arms pitifully outstretched. * * * * * Paula, alone in the long hall, ran to the marble stairs, hurried down and into the street--swiftly to her house. There, every thread of clothing she had worn was gathered into a pile for burning. Then she bathed and her strength returned. SEVENTH CHAPTER PAULA BEGINS TO SEE MORE CLEARLY THROUGH MADAME NESTOR'S REVELATIONS, AND WITNESSES A BROADWAY ACCIDENT