Page:The Mystery of Choice - Chambers.djvu/183

Rh see the doctor, but now—God have mercy!—I can touch him.

All the high spectres are stooping from the clouds, bending above me to watch. I know them and their eyes of shadow I know them now; Hârpen that was to Chaské what Hárpstinâ shall be to Hapéda; and Harkâ shall come after all with the voice of winter winds:

"Aké u, aké u, aké u!"

But the magic second shall never return.

"Mâ cânté maséca!"

Now they leave my bed, the people who crowded there under the shadowy forms of the spectres; now the doctor bends over; I see and feel him. His hands are tangled in the threads of time; he is cutting a thread; he

When I spoke to him first I spoke in the French language. Before he answered, the scream of a blue jay in the elms outside set my nerves aquiver, and I called for Donald and Walter.

As I lay there I could see the Aspen hills from the window, heaps of crumpled gold bathed in sunshine. Over them sailed the froth from the silken milkweed; over them drifted