"Here, I say, don't, Bessie!" he cried nervously. "You look awfully uncanny when you do that! You're brooding," he continued, "that's what you're doing, brooding. You're getting into a low state. You want bucking up. I don't think I shall go to the Polytec. to-night; I shall stay and cheer you up. You know, I really don't think you're making an effort, darling." His last words seemed to strike her. They seemed to fit in with something of which she too was conscious. "Not making an effort ..." she wondered how he knew that. She felt in some vague way that it was important that she should make an effort. For, while her dream ever evaded her, and yet never ceased to call her with such a voice as he who reads on a magic page of the calling of elves hears stilly in his brain, yet somehow behind the seduction was another and a sterner voice. There was warning as well as fascination. Beyond that edge at which she strained on tiptoe, mingled with the jocund calls to Hasten, Hasten, were deeper calls that bade her Beware. They puzzled her. Beware of what? Of what danger? And to whom?... "How do you mean, I'm not making an effort, Ed?" she asked slowly, again looking into the fire, where the kettle now made a gnat-like singing. "Why, an effort to get all right again. To be as you used to be--as, of course, you will be soon." "As I used to be?" The words came with a little check in her breathing. "Yes, before all this. To be yourself, you know." "Myself?" "All jolly, and without these jerks and jumps. I wish you could get away. A fortnight by the sea would do you all the good in the world."