He turned toward the door as if to leave, and a shock of terror shook
her. "Nick!" she cried. "Don't go away! I'm more afraid when I can't see
you--afraid that _he_--" She broke off sobbing. "All right, Honey. I'll turn my back." She slipped out from under the blanket, found the pins, and repaired
her ruined costume. The frock was torn, crushed and bedraggled; she
pinned it together at the throat, though her trembling fingers made the
task difficult. She pulled it on and took a tentative step toward the
door. "Nick!" she called as a wave of dizziness sent her swaying against the
wall. "What's the matter, Honey?" He turned anxiously at her cry. "I'm dizzy," she moaned. "My head aches, and--I'm scared!" "Pat, darling! You can't go out alone like this--and," he added
miserably, "I can't take you!" He slipped his arm around her tenderly,
supporting her to the couch. "Honey, what'll we do?" "I'll be--all right," she murmured. "I'll go in a moment." The
dizziness was leaving her; strength was returning. "You must!" he said dolefully. "What a parting, Pat! Never to see you
again, and then having this to remember as farewell!" "I know, Nick. You see, I love you too." She turned her dark, troubled
eyes on him. "Honey, kiss me good-bye! We'll have that to remember,
anyway!" Tears were again on her cheeks. "Do I dare?" he asked despondently. "After the things these lips of
mine have said, and what these arms have done to you?" "But you didn't, Nick! Could I blame you for--that _other_?" "God! You're kind, Pat! Honey, if ever I win out in this battle, if
ever I know I'm the final victor, I'll--No," he said his tones dropping
abruptly. "I'll never come back to you, Pat. It's far too dangerous,
and--can I ever be certain? Can I?" "I don't know, Nick. Can you?" "I can't be, Pat! I'll never be sure that _he_ isn't just dormant, as
he was before, waiting for my weakness to betray me! I'll never be
certain, Honey! It _has_ to be good-bye!" "Then kiss me!" She clung to him; the room that had been so recently a chamber of
horrors was transformed. As she held him, as her lips were pressed to
his, she thought suddenly of the words of the demon, that Heaven and
Hell were always the same place. They had taken on a new meaning, those
words; she drew away from Nick and turned her tear-bright eyes tenderly
on his. "Honey," she murmured, "I don't want you to leave me. I don't want you
to go!" "Nor do I want to, Pat! But I must." "You mustn't! You're to stay, and we'll fight it out together--be
married, or any way that permits us to fight it through together." "Pat! Do you think I'd consent to that?" "Nick," she said. "Nick darling--It's worth it to me! I'm realizing it
now; I thought it wasn't--but it is! I can't lose you, Nick--anything,
even that _other_, is better than losing you." "You're sweet, Pat! You know I'd trade my very soul for that, but--No. I can't do it! And don't Honey, torture me by suggesting it again." "But I will, Nick!" She was speaking softly, earnestly. "You're worth
anything to me! If _he_ should kill me, you'd still be worth it!" She
gazed tenderly at him. "I'd want to die anyway without you!" "No more than I without you," he muttered brokenly. "But I won't do it,
Pat! I won't do that to you!" "I love you, Nick!" she said in a low voice. "I don't want to live
without you. Do you understand me, dear? I don't want to live without
you!" He stared at her somberly. "I've thought of that too," he said. "Pat--if I only believed that we'd be together after, together
_anywhere_, I'd say yes. If only I believed there _were_ an afterwards!" "Doesn't he prove that by his very existence?" "Your Doctor would deny that." "Doctor Carl never saw _him_, Nick. And anyway, even oblivion together
would be better than being separated, and far better than this!" He gazed at her silently. She spoke again. "That doesn't frighten me,
Nick. It's only losing you that frightens me, especially the fear of
losing you to _him_." He continued his silent gaze. Suddenly he drew her close to him, held
her in a tight, tender embrace. 28

Lunar Omen


After a considerable interval, during which Nick held the girl tightly
and silently in his arms, he released her, sat with his head resting
on his cupped palms in an attitude of deep study. Pat, beside him,
fell mechanically to repinning the throat of her frock, which had
opened during the moments of the embrace. He rose to his feet, pacing
nervously before her. "It isn't a thing to do on the impulse of a moment, Pat," he muttered,
pausing at her side. "You must see that." "It isn't the impulse of a moment." "But one doesn't abandon everything, the whole world, so easily,
Honey. One doesn't cast away a last hope, however forlorn a hope it may
be!" "Is there a hope, Nick?" she asked gently. "Is there a chance left to
us?" "I don't know!" His voice held an increasing tenseness. "Before
God--I--don't know!" "If there's a chance, the very slightest shadow of the specter of a
chance, we'll take it, won't we? Because the other way is always open
to us, Nick." "Yes. It's always open." "But we won't take that chance," she continued defiantly, "if it
involves my losing you, Honey. I meant what I said, Nick: I don't want
to live without you!" "What chance have we?" he queried somberly. "Those are our
alternatives--life apart, death together." "Then you know my choice!" she cried desperately. "Nick, Honey--don't
let's draw it out in futile talking! I can't stand it!" He moved his hand in a gesture of bewilderment and frustration, and
turned away, striding nervously toward the window whose blind she had
raised. He leaned his hands on the table, peering dejectedly out upon
the street below. "What time," he asked irrelevantly in a queer voice, "did the Doctor
say the moon rose? Do you remember?" "No," she said tensely. "Oh, Honey! Please--don't stand there with your
back to me now, when I'm half crazy!" "I'm thinking," he responded. "It rises a little earlier each night--or
is it later? No matter; come here, Pat." She rose wearily and joined him; he slipped his arm about her, and drew
her against him. "Look there," he said, indicating the night-dark vista beyond the
window. She looked out upon a dim-lit street or court, at the blind end of
which the house was apparently situated. Far off at the open end,
across a distant highway where even at this hour passed a constant
stream of traffic, flashed a narrow strip of lake; and above it, rising
gigantic from the coruscating moon-path, lifted the satellite. She
watched the remote flickering of the waves as they tossed back the
broken bits of the light strewn along the path. Then she turned puzzled
eyes on her companion. "That's Heaven," he said pointing a finger at the great flowing lunar
disk. "There's a world that never caught the planet-cancer called Life,
or if it ever suffered, it's cured. It's clean--burned clean by the
sun and scoured clean by the airless zero of space. A dead world, and
therefore not an unhappy one."