She woke and it was still there, not so loud, very soft, and falling, between pauses, on her own door. Her fear was still with her and she sat up, seeing the room faintly charged with light. "Who is it?" she said and heard her voice a stifled whisper, then, the knocking repeated, she leaped out of bed and thrust her feet into slippers. She was awake now and thought of her father, no one else would come at such an hour. As she ran to the door she called, "What is it--is something the matter?" Through the crack she heard an answering whisper, "Open--it's all right. Let me in." It might have been anybody's voice. She opened the door and Boye Mayer came in. They looked at one another without words, and after the look, she began to retreat, backing across the room, foot behind foot. He locked the door and then followed her. There were pieces of furniture in the way that she skirted or pushed aside, keeping her eyes on him, moving without sound. She knew the door into the sitting room was open and with one hand she felt behind her for the frame, afraid to turn her back on him, afraid to move her glance, the withheld shriek ready to burst out when he spoke or sprang. She gained the doorway and backed through it and here breathed a hoarse, "Boye, what do you want?" He made no answer, stealing on her, and she slid to the table and then round it, keeping it between them. In the pale light, eye riveted on eye, they circled it like partners in a fantastic dance, creeping, one away and one in pursuit, steps noiseless, movements delicately alert. Her body began to droop and cower, her breath to stifle her; it was impossible to bear it longer. "Boye!" she screamed and made a rush for the door. She had shot the bolt back, her hand was on the knob, when he caught her. His grip was like iron, hopeless to resist, but she writhed, tore at him, felt herself pressed back against the wall, his fingers on her throat. It was a quarter to five on the morning of April 18, 1906. The first low rumble, the vibration beneath his feet, did not penetrate his madness. Then came a road, an enormous agglomeration of sound and movement, an unloosing of titanic elements--above them, under them, on them. They were separated, each stricken aghast, no longer enemies, beings of a mutual life seized by a mutual terror. The man was paralyzed, not knowing what it was, but the girl, bred in an earthquake country, clasped her hands over her skull and bent, crouching low and screaming, "_El temblor!_" The floor beneath them heaved and dropped and rose, groaning as the ground throes wrenched it. From walls that strained forward and sank back, pictures flew, shelves hurled their contents. Breaking free, upright for a poised second, the long mirror lunged across the room, then crashed to its fall. On its ruin plaster showered, stretches of ceiling, the chandelier in a shiver of glass and coiled wires.