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My people held to Queen Maud.
 How do you know so much? he asked abruptly.
 I know very little, she answered, after a brief pause.  My father taught me
most of it he was a very wise man. And he sent me to Tours for a year the year
my mother died. And there are books, English and French. When my work is
finished I shall go out from this place, live differently. Practise all I
have learned in theory.
 Your work? he asked.
She leaned still closer to him, and pointed toward the Hall.  It is there,
she said.  You know. Like you, I want him to see us in apparent intimacy, to
fear me still more. Part of my work.
 Of your hate, say, he suggested, and smiled with her head almost under his
as she stood, she could not see the smile.  And there s Troyarbour down under
us, quite probably seeing us and drawing its own conclusions. If you go
ghosting to-night as you did when I was here before, you may hear mighty
judgments on yourself on us.
She laughed softly just such a laugh as he had heard in the bar-room of The
Three Thorns. Then, standing away from him, she pushed the night-dark hair
back from her temple, and he saw a patch of discolouration a bruise,
evidently, on the whiteness of the skin.
 You see? she asked.  It is not painful now, but it was at first. A proof of
how little control I have. I
stepped out, along that fourth line, just as I did the night you were here.
And thought to step back into my own room the one you have seen but in actual
fact came back between Ephraim and another man.
Pushed them apart from each other as they were walking home, and so got this
bruise. And  again she laughed, softly and long  each of them thought the
other had done it. They were going to fight it was so funny that I couldn t
help laughing aloud, and that frightened them so much they simply fled to
their homes. It was night, you see. And in that fourth direction there is no
night, no darkness, because one does not see with the physical eye.
 One does not see  He repeated it incredulously.
 I told you why you still wanted to hold my arm, up here, she explained.  I
knew, last night, you were determined not to come near me, and blinded you as
if you were in a fog, and turned you back and then let you go. It is all quite
simple one sees in a different way. I could only explain it fully if you were
able to comprehend that fourth direction of movement but then I should not
have to explain.
You would know as I know. I might show you, teach you 
 Control of this fourth dimension? he asked.
She shook her head.  I have not yet got control of it, she answered.  Give
you comprehension of it,
say, such as I have myself. I think, with your greater knowledge, you could
get control, and perhaps in turn teach me. Because I have no right to what I
know of it.
 No, he said, very soberly.  You are rather like a child sitting on a ton or
so of high explosives, playing with the switch that might blow you to
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fragments at any moment. Something like that.
 I m cold! The way in which she shivered proved it.  Ephraim will be going
home soon, too, and I
want to see him before he goes. And Adolphus has had his exercise, and I ve
shown you all
Troyarbour.
HE LOOKED down, and saw the village in its two separate yet connected hollows
under the downs, with the Hall in yet a third hollow, and the lane that wound
toward the Italian gates closed again now, those gates. And the lone farmhouse
with its outbuildings, quite apart from the life of the village, as she was
apart from it all. A witch, perhaps, but in this climb no more than a girl
like other girls except for her hair and eyes, which were unlike any other
that he knew or had seen. The mentality of her, for this hour, was so normal
as to make him doubt the qualities he knew existed in her, or the power over
which, as yet, she had only partial control. He took her arm again.
  The suns that scorch us, the winds that freeze , he quoted after her.  Yes,
you re very little more than human, in reality. You ve found something that
might change the world, and you not only can t use it, but would put it to a
small and personal use if you could.
 To what use would you put it? she asked, rather sharply.
 I wouldn t use it to destroy one man, he answered bluntly.  I wouldn t use
it to scare simple minds like those I find in the bar-room of the village pub.
I might try to put it to real use.
 What is real use? she demanded, with a bitted tinge to the question.  Could
you make men other than what they are could you change the cruelty and
selfishness that rules the world? I seek to destroy one man I admit it,
because it is my purpose in life, something greater and stronger than myself.
 If you gained full control of this I know this power of movement that sets
one free in a way you cannot comprehend and taught it to others, what do you
think would be the result? Some country this country, perhaps would use it to
master other countries, make itself the most powerful in the world and in the
making inflict ten times the suffering caused by all the wars of the last five
hundred years.
 I know a little, and with that I think! Mankind is not yet fit to hold this
knowledge, but must suffer more, learn more of self-control. I think I told
you along that line, beyond the three in which we two have moved to reach this
point over Troyarbour, there are greater intelligences, greater powers. I have
communed with them like one talking to gods through a veil.
 And? he asked, impressed by her intensity.
 They see man as a pitiful thing, she answered.  As I see Adolphus, there,
waiting to swallow my chickens if for a minute I release my control over him.
A being that insists on putting appetite before ultimate good. Oh, there are
exceptions, I know, but can you point out to me one nation that will not try
to beat down its neighbour for its own advantage, or one corporate body that
will not crush and destroy any smaller competitor to swell its own profits?
 No, he said, after a pause for reflection.  I m afraid I can t. But you,
with your small aim, are hardly the one to accuse others.
 I do not accuse I state, she retorted.  As for my own aim, it is not in my
control. I have to follow it, accomplish it. That, I know, you cannot
understand. And I m cold let us go down.
 At least, he said, as he took her arm again and with her began the descent
from the mound,  you re human.
 That which also you won t understand is the worst of it, she said.  The
Norns or Erda herself, perhaps bound us all with that chain, or else Dark
Lagny herself might have accomplished all that is left for me to do.
Near the comparative level of the ridge, she slipped, almost fell, and reached
up for a second or less he felt her arms round his neck. Then, as he would
have held her, she was not there, but he was alone. Adolphus the boar,
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following them down, vented a savage grunt and came charging at Gees as he
gained level ground. Fury blazed in the little, sunken eyes of the boar s [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]