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 somehow. This confidence was so strong that it wrapped him in as comforting a security as though Siddereticus' arms were around him, holding him, keeping him sheltered and unafraid.

Fen smiled dreamily, gazing half-unseeing at the far blue coast-line. Every day that horizon changed. At Venice it had been low and widespread, with great stretches of marsh and sandy flats, over which tiny iridescent waves tiptoed endlessly. But all this had vanished; the coast was high now, and ragged, with cliffs dropping sheer into the sea, and the greater shadows of dim blue peaks rising behind.

Since he had known Siddereticus and seen Venice, Fen found it easier to imagine almost anything. So that now, though Sally, who was re-stringing a broken chain of beads near by, certainly saw him lying there in his chair, he was really