THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT
least, an extraordinary radiance. Just so, though it had no form suggesting human shape, yet it had a presence. A character was in it beyond that of its fellows, and as Carron gazed he became aware gradually of an untraceable expression, which was not the expression of a human face, nor of any human thought, but the ineffable look there is on insensate things, the look perhaps of Eternity.
To this power overshadowing them, which, should it topple, would crush them and be unaware, Blanche raised her eyes with a glance that hailed it. Following her gaze his remained fixed at the point where the crest of the rock jutted on the black sky. It was shaped like a helmet with wing-like pieces on either side. His glance rushed down the front of the thing. Looked at from beneath it was fore-shortened, the hollowed neck was hidden and the window which had led him with its eye of distance was lost. The whole form was flung out of proportion by nearness and too great reality. The strange transformation from the imagined to the actual had taken place, and the actual appeared less real than fancy.
It was not in this fashion he had expected to come to the feet of the Sphinx, nor thus he had thought to find her, hiding the loophole by which she had first led him. He began to wonder if the loophole
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