Then a light scorching flame seemed to envelop her whole body. She felt Sherbrand’s breath upon her cheek.... He said, speaking swiftly, and close to her ear: "No, you are not a goddess, but something far better! You are a woman one could worship! You could hate magnificently and forgive greatly, and love to the very verge of death! That was said to me of the Doctor, and you are like him!" "Don’t!" she said, wincing. "You don’t know me!" He answered firmly: "But I do know you! I knew you the moment I saw you in Paris. You’re the girl I have been waiting for ever since I read Morris’s ’Eredwellers’. You’re The Friend! Now I’ve found you I shall never let you go again!" What midsummer madness was this, prompting him to sweet audacity? His, "I shall never let you go!" had a convincing, manly ring. She quickened her steps, wading through a shallow sea of shadows, through which the warm short turf came up to meet her feet. He kept by her side, and together they moved towards the Valkyr-ring of fire, changing as they advanced into isolated pillars of towering flame outlining the huge white oval of Fanshaw’s landing-place. Here and there the goblin-like shapes moved, stirring the flares with rods, feeding the blaze with something from vessels they carried. And two other figures stood in talk by the telegraph-hut, recognisable, outlined against the oblong of electric radiance framed by the doorway, as Saxham and the Chief. "This is a bit previous, you think? Headlong—ill-considered on my part—to have spoken like this to a girl I’ve only met once before? You must understand—a man who follows a risky profession gets into the way of not waiting for to-morrow, because to-day may be the wind-up. Say you are not angry!" Sherbrand pleaded. "No, you poor dear boy! But you’re so awfully mistaken!" There was a rich and exquisite tenderness, it seemed to Sherbrand, in the deep, full, breathy tones. "I’m not a bit what you think me! There is nothing worthy of worship in a woman like me," said Patrine. He asked, as they walked side by side from patches of brilliant blue-white light into deep oases of shadow: "May I say more? May I tell you that I’ve thought of you ever since that Paris night.... What things I’ve called myself—if you only knew!—for not getting your address. But I swore I’d find you somehow, and I would have! I’d know your voice among a thousand. If I were blind, and forgot other people’s faces, I should always see yours painted against the dark. At night—now! when I shut my eyes ... there it is! You are not angry?" "No—I’m only sorry for you!" she said in her deepest, sweetest tone. "Sorry?" There was keen anxiety in the face that was illuminated by the petrol-flare they were passing. "You’re not—married—or going to be?" he asked. "Neither!"