whistled and smoked alternately, his anxiety constantly growing; but
the gentle sighing of the wind in the tree tops, and the uncertain
rustling of the leaves, were but poor comfort. Was this to be the end
of his strange visit? Was he to start back upon his homeward journey
without an opportunity to bid his phenomenal hosts good-bye? He could
not bear the thought. Dorothy at all events must be found. He would
search the grounds and ransack the house. Surely she must be
somewhere within reach of his voice. But then she was so strange, so
different from any woman he had ever known. How could he tell,
perhaps she had left the old place forever! Henley had not realized
until now what a deep and overpowering dependence had suddenly
developed in him toward these people. They seemed to hold the key to
another world in a more practical and tangible way than he had ever
deemed it possible for any mortal-appearing man to do. Even to be
shut out from the wonderful city of Levachan would be an overwhelming
loss, and how could he ever hope to see it again without their aid?
To be deprived forever of the spiritual influence of these eccentric,
half-earthly acquaintances was a thought he could not tolerate. Even
the horrors through which they had passed appeared trivial as
compared with the glimpses they had afforded him of happiness. But to
see these things--to feel the mystery of their power and beauty just
beginning to descend and take possession of him--and then to be
snatched back to earth, with the inability to return, was too
horrible, and like the ecstatic visions of a drowning man cut short
by rescue. While he had Ah Ben and Dorothy within his reach, he felt
the possibility of return; but suddenly they had gone, and for the
first time he realized what they had been to him. Then it began to
dawn upon him what these people must have suffered in a century and a
half, and what they must continue to endure for untold time to come,
in their inability to return in full to that world they had left, or