Suddenly there would emerge from this tangle of memory, with singular precision, some phrase of hers, an inflection of her voice, an attitude, a glance, the seat where they had sat, the finale of the Beethoven sonata, a burst of melody from Mary Dyce, the face of the footman who had held back the _portiere_--anything that happened to have caught his attention at the moment--and these images obscured by their extreme vividness the actual life around him.

He pleaded with her; said to her in thought what he would say to her in reality by and by.
Arrived in his own rooms, he ordered tea of his man-servant, installed himself in front of the fire and gave himself up to the fictions of his hope and his desire.

He took the little jewelled skull out of its case and examined it carefully.

The tiny diamond teeth flashed back at him in the firelight, and the rubies lit up the shadowy orbits.

Behind the smooth ivory brow time pulsed unceasingly--_Ruit Hora_.