It was very, very dark. Fiona could not see her hand if she held it close before her eyes. It was just blackness. Only one thing broke it; far away--many miles it might be--was a tiny speck of white, like the point of a pin. All round her in the dark were little soft sounds; they brushed against her feet, and passed before her face; little soft sounds, apparently without bodies. She held the tiny point-feather firmly in the fingers of her left hand, and touched it from time to time with her right, as she felt her way, one foot before the other--she could not walk--towards the point of light. And with her and about her went the small soft sounds; one would have said that they whispered and chuckled in the darkness. How far and how long she went she could never guess; there was nothing by which to measure time or distance, and evidently she was not going to feel hunger or fatigue. At last she became conscious of a change. The white speck of light was growing brighter and larger; and the small soft sounds were becoming tangible. One brushed past her face, and she felt it; she put out a hand, and there was a scuffing and chuckling, as if they were playing blind man's buff with her. Then the light began to take shape; it was a circular pool lying on the floor and wall of the avenue of blackness down which she was passing; and it came from something on the other side. And the little soft sounds crowded round her; they laughed, they whispered, they clutched at her dress; they were trying to guide her in a certain direction. She tried to shake them off, and found that, though they could touch her, she could not touch them. And then she came into the pool of light.