"Just now," I said, "you spoke of some victory. You called me--soldier." "Is it not victory to have driven back the Dark One? Is he not a soldier who, aroused in the night to meet dreadful assault, sets his face to the enemy and battles front to front? Before the Eyes men and women have died or lost reason, or fled across half the world, broken by fear. What are the wars of man with man, compared with a man's battle against the Unknown? I honor you! I salute you! But--soldier alone on the forbidden Frontier, go! Join your fellows in the world alloted to you; live, nor seek to tread where mankind is not sent." "How can there be wrong in facing a situation that I did not cause?" "There is no wrong. There is danger." "What danger?" I persisted. "Can you ask me?" she retorted with a hint of impatience. "You who have felt Its grope toward your inner spirit?" I shuddered, remembering the brush of those antennae, exploring, examining! But I persisted, beyond my every-day nature. Her speech was for me like that liquor distilled from honey that inflamed the Norsemen to war fury. "You say I came off victor," I reminded her. "Yes. But can you conquer again, and again, and again? Will you not feel strength fail, health break, madness creep close? Will you not be worn down by the Thing that knows no weariness and fall its prey at last?" "It will come--often?" "Until one conquers, It will come." I forced away a qualm of panic. "How can you know?" I demanded. "Ask me not. I do know." "But, look here!" I argued. "If as you say, this creature was not meant to meet mankind, how can It come after me this way?" She seemed to pause, finally answering with reluctance: "Because, two centuries ago one of the race of man here broke through the awful Barrier that rears a wall between human kind and those dark forms of life to which It belongs. For know that a human will to evil can force a breach in that Barrier, which those on the other side never could pass without such aid." I neither understood nor believed. At least, I told myself that I did not believe her wild, legendary explanation of the nightmare Thing that visited me. I did not want to believe. Neither did I wish to offend her by saying so! "You will go," she presently mistook my silence for surrender. "You are wise as well as brave. Good go with you! Good walk beside you in that happy world where you live!" "Wait!" I cried sharply. Her voice had seemed to recede from me, a retreating whisper at the last word. "No! I will not go. I must--I will know more of you. You are no phantom. Who are you? Where--when can I see you in daylight?" "Never." "Why not?" "I came to hold a light before the dreadful path. The warning is given." "But you will come again?" "Never." "What? The Thing will come, and not you?" "What have I to do with It, who am more helpless before It than you? Go; and give thanks that you may."