Both of them, to be effective, to do their utmost service, must have periods of rest.
Here, then, his will came to his aid, for he found that by its strong, concentrated exertion he was enabled both to shut off the sensations or to excite them.

Another thing he found also--that after a while it was impossible to do without them.

For a period the anticipation of their next visit would buoy him up; but if it were baulked too long, then reaction set in, and with it the horrors of the Pit.
This was the first stage of his insanity--or of his vision.
Dear as such manifestations might be to him, in time he wearied of them; these hints which but awakened his imagination, these fantastic spiced meats which, without staying it, only sharpened his spiritual appetite.
More than ever he longed to see and to know, to make acquaintance with the actual presence, whereof they were but the forerunners, the cold blasts that go before the storm, the vague, mystical draperies which veiled the unearthly goddess at whose shrine he was a worshipper.

He desired the full fierce fury of the tempest, the blinding flash of the lightning, the heavy hiss of the rain, the rush of the winds bursting on him from the four horizons; he desired the naked face of his goddess.
And she came--or he acquired the power to see her, whichever it might be.

She came suddenly, unexpectedly, completely, as a goddess should.
It was on Christmas Eve, at night, the anniversary of Stella's death four years before.