He was sitting, still dressed, in a chair in his room. Time had passed, but how long a time he did not know. The candle on the table burnt unevenly, with a smoky flame. The house was quiet--the thunder nearer at hand. He passed his hand over his forehead and tried to collect his thoughts. The heat in his brain like the throb of blood from a spent artery, had eased a little now--he was still in stupor, but the weight of it was not so extreme. He began to realize that, whatever else might have happened to him, the fever was not yet wholly gone from his body. He must sleep--after he had slept, the beat in his head might stop. He was about to rise when his eyes were drawn to the door. It was opening--a crack--a gap--letting in soft blackness. He stared at it, without fear or surprise. It might be Death--if it were, he would not lift a hand. A hand, a bare arm, came slowly out of the darkness. The hand held a white flower between its fingers. It was Sparta's hand. After what seemed a long time, "Andrew," said Sparta's voice, in a low call. He shut his teeth and would not answer. There was silence, while the hand moved a little and the curtains waved in the draft. Then, "Andrew," said the voice again--the fine gold streaking the crystal with threads of radiance. Then hand and flower were slowly withdrawn and the door closed gradually, leaving Andrew staring like a blind man at where they had been. His pistols lay on the table near him, in their case. He took one of them out and examined it slowly, with minute care. The priming needed to be changed--this damp weather ruined one's priming. But he made no move to change it. He fiddled with the trigger a moment, a childish look on his face, not thinking of anything; then he forgot why he had taken up the pistol, and stuck it in his pocket to get it out of the way. His hands relaxed--the spinning in his mind began to slacken, like a top running down. After another while, he rose, stiffly, and smiled. The stupor had passed from him--he knew what he would do. If the world were colored like a bat he would take the color of the world. He would take the instant of brisk desire for the image seen in a cloud and know in its entirety the damnation of possession and the wittiness of the flesh. He would despoil as he had been despoiled and lose the rags of gold he had brought from fool's paradise in the quick heat of the blood as a wise man should. A sudden glare of heat lightning showed his face to him in the mirror. It was haggard and strange, but he smiled at it and went to the door. Down the corridor, packed with bags of darkness, lay another door with a white flower before it, and he was going there to sleep with a ghost. PART THREE: The Pit of Oppression