It was as though a door had been opened somewhere above her and she were being drawn upwards by some invisible means, upwards and upwards, light as gossamer and strangely transcendentally happy, towards the warmth and brightness and wonder that lay beyond.
Up and still up her spirit seemed to soar.

Of her body she was supremely, most blissfully, unconscious.

She felt as one at the entrance of a dream-world, a world of unknown unimagined splendours, a world of golden atmosphere, of ineffable rapture, and she was floating up through the ether, eager-spirited, wrapt in delight.
And then quite suddenly she knew that Max had returned to her side.

His hand was laid upon her arm, his fingers sensitive and ruthless closed upon her pulse.
In that instant Olga also knew that her dream-world was fading from her, her paradise was lost.

Softly, inexorably, the door that had begun to open to her closed.