And in that moment every numbed nerve in Columbine's body was pierced into quivering life.
She stood as one transfixed, and he stood motionless also in the flickering light of the flames, gazing at her with eyes of awful blue that were as burning spirit.

But he spoke not a word--not a word.

How could a dead man speak?
And as they stood thus, facing each other, the floor between them began suddenly to heave, became a mass of seething billows that rocked her, caught her, engulfed her.

She went down into them, and as the tossing darkness received her, her last thought was that Rufus had come back indeed--not to say farewell, but to take her with him on the long voyage from which there is no return.....