Sometimes for half an hour the fog lifted and bright blue sky
gleamed like a miraculous lake suddenly discovered in the heart of
the boundless waste, then vanished again. Suddenly, with a whisk of
the immortal broom, the web was torn, the spider slain, the world
clear once more--but, in the obscurity and dusk, 1907 had seen his
chance and vanished.
Warlock, long before this, had lost consciousness of external sights
and sounds. He could not have told any one when it was that the two
worlds had parted company. For many many years he had been conscious
of both existences, but during his youth and middle-age they had
seemed to mingle and go along together. He had believed in both
equally and had been a citizen of both. Then gradually, as time
passed, he had seemed to have less and less hold upon the actual
physical world. He saw it suddenly with darkened vision; his wife
and daughter, and indeed all human beings, except in so far as they
were souls to be saved for the Lord, became less and less realities.
Only Martin was flesh and blood, to be loved and longed for and
feared for just as he had always been.
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