“Who put it there?” I asked.
“I did.”
“Well, that’s what she was looking for,” I said.
I held out the Token to him on the palm of my hand, as if it were the
proof that I had seen her.
“Helen,” he said gravely, “I think you must be ill.”
“You think so? I’m not so ill that I don’t know what you put it away
for,” I said. “It was because she thought you cared for it more than you
did for her.”
“You can remind me of that? There must be something very badly wrong
with you, Helen,” he said.
“Perhaps. Perhaps I only want to know what _she_ wanted.... You _did_
care for her, Donald?”
I couldn’t see the phantasm now, but I could feel it, close, close,
vibrating, palpitating, as I drove him.
“Care?” he cried. “I was mad with caring for her! And she knew it.”
“She didn’t. She wouldn’t be here now if she knew.”
At that he turned from me to his station by the chimney-piece. I
followed him there.
“What are you going to do about it?” I said.
“Do about it?”
“What are you going to do with this?”
I thrust the Token close towards him. He drew back, staring at it with a
look of concentrated hate and loathing.
“Do with it?” he said. “The damned thing killed her! This is what I’m
going to do with it—”
He snatched it from my hand and hurled it with all his force against the
bars of the grate. The Buddha fell, broken to bits, among the ashes.
[Illustration: He stepped forward, opening his arms.]
Then I heard him give a short, groaning cry. He stepped forward, opening
his arms, and I saw the phantasm slide between them. For a second it
stood there, folded to his breast; then suddenly, before our eyes, it
collapsed in a shining heap, a flicker of light on the floor, at his
feet.
Then that went out too.