The sickness had come like a whirlwind: when it passed, what would be left?
The fight went on in the quiet hills--a man of no great stature or strength, against a monster who racked him in a fierce embrace.

A thousand scenes flashed through Valmond's brain, before his eyes, while the great wheel of torture went round, and he was broken, broken-mended and broken again, upon it.

Spinning--he was for ever spinning, like a tireless moth through a fiery air; and the world went roaring past.

In vain he cried to the wheelman to stop the wheel: there was no answer.
Would those stars never cease blinking in and out, or the wind stop whipping the swift clouds past?
So he went on, endless years, driving through space, some terrible intangible weight dragging at his heart, and all his body panting as it spun.
Grotesque faces came and went, and bright-eyed women floated by, laughing at him, beckoning to him; but he could not come, because of this endless going.

He heard them singing, he felt the divine notes in his battered soul; he tried to weep for the hopeless joy of it; but the tears came no higher than his throat.