TERROR 1 That night the cold fell, like a plague, upon the town.

It came, sweeping across the long low flats, crisping the dark canals with white frosted ice, stiffening the thin reeds at the river's edge, taking each blade of grass and holding it in its iron hand and then leaving it an independent thing of cold and shining beauty.

At last it blew in wild gales down the narrow streets, throwing the colour of those grey walls against a sky of the sharpest blue, making of each glittering star a frozen eye, carrying in its arms a round red sun that it might fasten it, like a frosted orange, against its hard blue canopy.
Already now, at half-past two of the afternoon, there were signs of the early dusk.

The blue was slowly being drained from the sky, and against the low horizon a faint golden shadow soon to burn into the heart of the cold blue, was hovering.
Olva Dune, turning into the King's Parade, was conscious of crowds of people, of a gaiety and life that filled the air with sound.

He checked sternly with a furious exercise of self-control his impulse to creep back into the narrow streets that he had just left.
"It's an Idea," he repeated over and over, as he stood there.