--Can not you see my helplessness?
He answered my silence. He mastered himself and took my hand once more.
He held it close. He was at ease and strong.
“I respect you,” he whispered. And he went away.
_n_
I shut the door and stood at the open window. Blackness. No spot of
light, no twinge of movement marred the black of the world. I was tense
with an expectancy. The black of the world was torture but I faced it.
I knew the next step would bring me full within it: the blackness would
speak. The night....
The bell of my telephone. There it was! A piercing channel to my ears,
whereby the night would speak.