San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1925-12-20

tainly as that he was himself and
no one else. The feeling of
urgency was strong upon him. He
was wanted. He got to his feet.
He ached, and his head felt bruised
and weighty. The delirium of the
drugged wine had passed from
him, leaving him stunned. But
he knew that he was wanted.
Taking his dim way, slowly, to
the threshold of the oratory he
CROPPED from it's lighter dark into
the utter blackness that lay be-
yond. He was steady enough on
his feet now, but quite automatic
in his movements. He did not
think, his head throbbed as though
it had been struck with a
hammer. His instructive cropping
had encountered the wall of the
gallery, and he moved alone it.
A closed door was passed, and
then another. His foot struck a
stone step. There were three
steps. He mounted them slowly
and his outstretched hand pushed
inward an unlatched door-the
door of the turret room that had
been allotted to the witch's
daughter.
When Sidonia, fleeing from love,
slipped past the half open door
into the haunted turret room she
did not check her breathless self
until halted by the farther wall.
Then she faced about, standing
with her back against it like
creature at bay. She was keyed up
to abuse, to repudiate, to fight,
if need be, like dog-cornered cat.
The candle light in the gallery
was visible, indirectly through the
door opening. She heard voices.
The light disappeared. There was
silence.
She continued to stand with her
back to the wall, her hands clench-
ed into fists, incredulous-pierced
and transported with intolerable
disappointment. This void-this
dark nothing-was the very last
condition she could bear. Her
whole being screamed for conflict.
There was a sound in the gal
lery. Steps. But the sound re-
coded and was gradually swallow
ed by the muffling silence. Some
one had come out from the great
bedchamber and had turned
about, going from her. She was
deserted for the second time.
Leaving the wall, she moved to
the side of the settle. 1t was
ancient, narrow and chest-like,
with carved panels. She dropped
to her knees beside it, burrowed
her head hard against the in
tucked coverings. and beat upon
the panels with her fists as though
they raised a barrier between her.
self and her very soul. She want
ed to tear herself, to scream.
Her fury was wordless, outside
all reason; too passionate for any
definite shape of thought. 1t was
like rolling, fiery smoke. Her body
writhed. She ground her forehead
into the denied pillows and
her fists hammered softly, desper-
ately against the worm-eaten
panels. Even black magic, the
ritual of the waxen image and the
strength of the philtre, was not
powerful enough to overcome the
invincible indifference that had
tasted her mouth and left her in
the Street of the Martyrs, that had
seemed to thaw for a matter of
moments when the tall horse
caparisoned in white and silver
had been checked by the crowd
beneath the windows of the master
goldsmith's house, that had, within
the hour, ignored her utterly in the
great bedchamber until whipped
by the witch-drug to a brief, quiv-
ering spasm of passion. She hated
him-the young lord - the angel
as she had never, in all .ler short,
savage life, hated woman, man or
malevolent inanimate object. And
he had kissed her for the second
time-there-in Sabine's cham
Der, and she-she had parted her
lips for him.
She ground her brow with a
sort of fury into the dented place
in the coverings and moaned:
ooh, Satan, Satan"
1t was involuntary.
A stiffness dropped on her like
a sudden cloak. Her body re-
Taxed. She found herself drawing
quiet breath that deepened and
deepened, becoming slower and
more rhythmic with every inspira-
ton. Her emotion, sharp as death,