Flaw in the Crystal-May Sinclair

0:00This is Ashley Akinetti from the almost famous podcast. You ever notice you and your spouse keep saying, we need to get away, but you never actually plan anything. That was us until we did something fun and spontaneous. We went to resort pass.com. There are hundreds of hotel resorts, pools and spots and private beaches that you can enjoy. You can spend the day at a luxury resort, pool, spa, massage, without booking an overnight stay. And listen, I may have only been like 15 minutes from home, but it felt like it was a whole different world. And I'm thinking, this is exactly what I needed. So just go to resort pass.com, choose your resort, choose your day, luxury, resort, day passes, start at just $1,500. Once you post your daycation, people are going to ask where you are. Go to resort pass.com, slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get $20 off when you spend $100. That's code almost famous at resort pass.com slash almost famous.

1:01Hey, it's Kelly Rowland. You may not know this, but I have Exama. So I get how it can steal your time. But why let Exama take over when you can talk to your doctor about Epglis? Epglis, Lebrichizamab, LBKZ, a 250 milligram per 2-militre injection is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older, who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe Exama. Also called a topic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies. Epglis can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you are allergic to Epglis. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with Epglis. Before starting Epglis, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Paid partnership with Lily. Respect your time. Ask your doctor about Epglis and visit Epglis.com or call 1-800-LilyRX or 1-800-545-5979. Shop vans and Albertsons for fresh savings every time you shop.

2:03This week at vans and Albertsons, get fresh, boneless, skinless chicken breasts for 1-99 per pound limit 10 pounds. And locally grown grape-ary cotton candy grapes are 2-99 per pound with digital coupon. Plus 24 packs of Canada dry or 7-up 12-ounce cans are 4-99 limit one with digital coupon. Enjoy fresh and delicious savings for every meal. Hurry in, these deals won't last. Visit vans or Albertsons.com for more deals and ways to save. Chapter 1 of the Flo in the Crystal This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Xpatriot and Bangor Mane. The Flo in the Crystal by Mason Claire, Chapter 1. It was Friday the day he always came. If, so she's safe guarded it, he was to come at all. They had left it that way in the beginning that it should be open to him to come or not to come.

3:07They had not even settled that it should be Fridays, but it always was, the weekend being the only time when he could get away. The only time he had explained to Agatha of her all when getting away excited no remark. He had to, or he would have broken down. Agatha called it getting away from things, but she knew that there was only one thing, his wife Bella. To be wedded to a mass of furious and malignant nerves, which was all that poor Bella was now, simply meant destruction to a man like Rodney Lanyon. Rodney's own nerves were not as strong as they had been after 10 years of Bella's. It had been understood for long enough, understood even by Bella, that if he couldn't have his weekends, he was done for. He couldn't possibly have stood the torment and the strain of her. Of course, she didn't know he spent the greater part of them with Agatha of her all. It was not to be desired that she should know. Her obtuseness helped them. Even in her younger and sainer days, she had failed persistently to realize any profound

4:10and poignant thing that touched him. So by the mercy of heaven, she had never realized Agatha of her all. She used to say that she had never seen anything in Agatha, which amounted as he once told her to not seeing Agatha at all. Still less could she have compassed any vision of the Thai, the extraordinary intangible immaterial Thai that held them. Sometimes, at the last moment, his escape to Agatha would prove impossible, so they had left it further that he was to send her no forewarning. He was to come when and as he could. He could always get a room in the village in, or at the farm nearby, and in Agatha's house he would find his place ready for him, the place which would become his refuge, his place of peace. There was no need to prepare her. She was never not prepared. It was as if by her preparedness, by the absence of preliminaries of adjustments and arrangements, he was always there, lodged in the innermost chamber.

5:10She had set herself apart. She had swept herself bare and scoured herself clean for him. Clean, she had to be. Clean from the desire that he should come. Clean above all from the thought, the knowledge she now had that she could make him come. Or if she had given herself up to that. But she never had. Never since the knowledge came to her, since she discovered wonderfully by a divine accident, that at any moment she could make him, that she had whatever it was, the power, the uncanny, unaccountable gift. She would be beginning to see more and more how it worked, how inevitably, how infallibly it worked. She was even a little afraid of it, of what it might come to mean. It did mean that without his knowledge, separated as they were and had to be, she could always get at him. And supposing it came to mean that she could get at him, to make him do things. Why the bare idea of it was horrible. Nothing could well have been more horrible to Agatha.

6:13It was the secret and the essence of their remarkable relation that she had never tried to get at him, whereas Bella had calamitously, and still more calamitously, because of the peculiar magic that there was, there must have been in her, Bella had succeeded. To have tried to get at him would have been for Agatha, the last treachery, the last in decency, while for Rodney it would have been the destruction of her charm. She was the way of escape for him from Bella, but she had always left her door, even the innermost door, wide open, so that where shelter and protection faced him, there faced him also the way of departure, the way of escape from her. And if her thought could get at him and fasten on him, and shut him in there, it could, she knew, but it need not. She was really all right. Restrained had been the essence and the secret of the charm she had, and it was also the secret and the essence of her gift.

7:14Why, she had brought it to so fine a point that she could shut out, and by shutting out, destroy any feeling, any thought that did violence to any other. She could shut them all out if it came to that, and make the whole place empty, so that if this knowledge of her power did violence, she had only to close her door on it. She closed it now on the bare thought of his coming, on the little innocent hope she had that he would come. By an ultimate refinement and subtlety of honor, she refused to let even expectation cling to him. But though it was dreadful to work her gift that way to make him do things, it was another way in which she did work it, lawfully, sacredly, incorruptibly, the way it first came to her. She had worked it twenty times without his knowledge for how he would have scoffed at her to make him well. Before it had come to her, he had been ever since she knew him, more or less ill, more or less tormented by the nerves

8:15that were wedded so indesolubly to bellows. He was always, it seemed to her terror on the verge, and she could say to herself, look at him now. Is abrupt, incredible recovery had been the first open manifestation of the way it worked. Not that she had tried it on him first, before she dared do that once, she had proved it on herself twenty times, she had proved it up to the hilt. But to ensure continuous results, it had to be a continuous process, and in order to give herself up to it, to him, to his pitiful case, she had lately, as her friend said, cut herself completely off. She had gone down into bucking them, Shire, and taken a small solitary house at Sarat-end in the valley of the Chess, three miles from the nearest station. She had shut herself up in a world half a mile long, one straight hill to the north, one to the south, two strips of flat pasture, the river and the white farm road between. A world closed east and west,

9:18by the turn the valley takes there between the hills, and barred by a gate at each end of the farm road. A land of pure curves of delicate colors, delicate shadows, all winter through a land of grey woods and salo fields, of plowed hillsides pale with the white strain of the chalk. In April, it was April now, a land shining with silver and with green. And the waves out of it led into lanes, it had neither sight nor hearing of the high roads beyond. There were only two houses in that half-mile of valley, Agatha's house and Woodman's farm. Agatha's house, white as a cutting in the chalk-downs, looked southwest up the valley and across it, to where a slender beachwood went lightly up the hill, and then stretched out in a straight line along the top, with a bare, fawn-colored flank of the plowed land below. The farmhouse looked east towards Agatha's house across the field, a red brick house dull, dark red with a grey bloom of weather on it,

10:20flat faced and flat eyed, two windows on each side of the door and a row of five above. All nine staring at the small white house across the field. The narrow, flat farm road linked the two. Except Rodney, when his inn was full, nobody ever came to Woodman's farm. And Agatha's house set down inside its east gate, shared its isolation, its immunity. Two villages, unseen, unheard, served her not a mile away. It was impossible to be more sheltered, more protected, and more utterly cut off. In only fifteen miles as the crow flies between this solitude in London, so that it was easy for Rodney Lanyon to come down. At two o'clock, the hour when he must come, if he were coming, she began to listen for the click of the left at the garden gate. She had agreed with herself that at the last moment expectancy could do no harm, it couldn't influence him. For either he had taken the 1230 train at Marlebon,

11:22or he had not. Agatha was so far reasonable. So at the last moment she permitted herself that dangerous and terrible joy. When the click came, in his footsteps after it, she admitted further, now when it could do no harm, that she had had four knowledge of him. She had been aware all the time that he would come. And she wondered, as she always wondered at his coming, whether really she would find him well, or whether this time it had incredibly miscarried. And her almost unbearable joy became suspense, became vehement desire to see him, and gather from his face, whether this time also it had worked. How were you? How have you been was her question, when he stood before her in her white room, holding her hand for an instant? Tremendously fit he answered, ever since I last saw you. Oh, seeing me, it was as if she wanted him to know that seeing her made no difference. She looked at him and received her certainty. She saw him clear-eyed and young.

12:24Younger than he was, his clean bronze face, set as it used to be, in a firmness that obliterated the lines, the little agonized lines that had made her heart ache. It always does me good, he said, to see you. And to see you, you know what it does to me. He thought he knew as he caught back his breath and looked at her, taking in again her fine whiteness, and her tenderness her purity of line, and the secret of her eyes, whose color, if they had color, he was never sure about. Taking in all of her from her adorable feet to her hair, vividly dark that sprang from the white parting like, was it like waves or wings? What had once touched and moved him unspeakably in Agatha's face was the capacity it had, latent in its tragic lines for expressing terror. Terror was what he most dreaded for her, what he had most tried to keep her from, to keep out of her face. And laterally, he had not found it,

13:24or rather, he had not found the... This is Matt Rogers from Los Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Los Culturistas, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. You know when people try a new food, and suddenly it's like, wait. That's the reaction. A lot of people are having when they first try QB Mayo. It's the one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle. You've probably seen it in the grocery store before. And if you've ever just walked past it, some people would say that's a huge mistake. Because this mayo is different. Most mayonnaise uses whole eggs. QB only uses egg yolks, which gives it this rich umami flavor. It's smoother, deeper, and almost buttery. Once people try it, they start putting it on everything. Egg sandwiches, fries, burgers, some fans even swear by dipping pizza crust in it. And once you notice it, you start seeing it everywhere. Chefs use it, restaurants use it. People who really care about flavor use it. Never try it, grab the bottle with the red cap next time you're at the store. Put it on just about anything, then you'll understand. QB, the original Japanese mayonnaise.

14:25This is Ashley Akinetti from the Almost Amused Podcast. You ever notice you and your spouse keep saying, we need to get away, but you never actually plan anything. That was us until we did something fun and spontaneous. We went to resortpass.com. There are hundreds of hotel resorts, pools and spots and private beaches that you can enjoy. You can spend the day at a luxury resort, pool, spa, massage, without booking an overnight stay. And listen, I may have only been like 15 minutes from home, but it felt like it was a whole different world. And I'm thinking, this is exactly what I needed. So just go to resortpass.com, choose your resort, choose your day, luxury resort day passes, start at just $1,500. Once you post your daycation, people are going to ask where you are. Go to resortpass.com, slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get $20 off when you spend $100. That's code almost famous at resortpass.com slash almost famous.

15:25It's fall in America. Make it count at the Ram Drive-In-Default Sales event. Make it powerful with our strongest Ram 1500 ever. Make it move with the Ram Heavy Duty with an available Cummins diesel and make it go to the distance with a 10 year or 100,000 mile powertrain limited warranty. Hurry in now for great deals during the Ram Drive-In-Default Sales event. Excludes fully electric vehicles applied to 2026 model year vehicles non-transferable. Visit moapart.com for complete details and a copy of the powertrain limited warranty. Cummins is a registered trademark of Cummins ain't Ram and Hammer registered trademarks of FCA, US, LLC. Unborn lurking spirit of it there. It had gone that little tragic droop in Agatha's face. The corners of her eyes and up her beautiful mouth were lifted as if by he could find no other word of the thing he meant but wings. She had a look which if it were not of joy was of something more vivid and positive than peace. He put it down to their increased and undisturbed communion made possible by her retirement to Sarat End. Yet as he looked at her he sighed again.

16:27In response to his sigh she asked suddenly, how's Bella? His face lighted wonderfully. It's extraordinary he said. She's better. Miles better. In fact if it was not tempting providence I should say she was well. She's been for the last week anyhow a perfect angel. His amazed, uncomprehending look gave for the clue to what had happened. It was another instance of the astounding and mysterious way it worked. She must have got at Bella somehow and getting at him. She saw now no end to the possibilities of the thing. There wasn't anything so wonderful in making him what after all he was. But if she, Bella, had been even for a week a perfect angel it had made her what she was not and never had been. His next utterance came to her with no irrelevance. You've been found out for a moment she wondered and he guessed it then her secret. You had never known anything about it and it was not likely that he should know now.

17:28It was indeed very far from knowing when he could think that it was seeing her that did it. There was of course the other secret, the fact that he did see her. But she had never allowed that it was a secret or that it need be, although they guarded it so carefully. Anybody except Bella who wouldn't understand it was welcome to know that he came to see her. He must mean that. Found out she repeated. If you haven't been you will be. You mean she said, Sarat-N has been found out? If you put it that way, I saw the powels at the station. She breathed freely. They told me they'd taken rooms at some farm here. Which farm? He didn't remember. Was it Woodman's farm she asked? And he said yes. That was the name they'd told him. Whereabouts was it? Don't you know, she said. That's the name of your farm. He had not known it and was visibly annoyed at knowing it now. And Agatha herself felt some dismay. If it had been any other place but Woodman's farm,

18:31it stared at them, it watched them. It knew all their goings out and their comings in. It knew Rodney. Not that that had mattered in the least, but the powels when they came would know too. She tried to look as if that didn't matter either, while they faced each other in a silence, a curious, unfamiliar, discomposure. She recovered first. After all she said, why shouldn't they? Well, I thought you weren't going to tell people. Her face mounted a sudden flame, a signal of resentment. She had always resented the imputation of secrecy in their relations. And now it was as if he were dragging forward the thought that she perpetually put away from her. Tell about what she asked coldly, about Sarah at end. I thought we'd agreed to keep it for ourselves. I haven't told everybody, but I did tell Millie Powell. My dear girl, that wasn't very clever of you. I told her not to tell. She knows what I want to be alone for.

19:31Good God! As he stared in dismay at what he judged to be her unspeakable indiscretion, the thought rushed in on her straight from him, the naked, terrible thought, that there should be anything they had to hide. They had to be alone for. She saw at the same time how defenseless he was before it. He couldn't keep it back. He couldn't put it away from him. It was always with him a danger watching on his threshold. Then he made her face it with him. We're done for. No, no, she cried. How could you think that? It was another thing, something that I'm trying to do. You told her he insisted what did you tell her? That I'm doing it, that I'm here for my health. She understands it that way. He smiled as if he were satisfied knowing her so well. And still his thought, his terrible naked thought, was there. It was looking at her straight out of his eyes. Are you sure she understands, he said? Yes, absolutely.

20:32He hesitated and then put it differently. Are you sure she doesn't understand that she hasn't an inkling? He wasn't sure whether Agatha understood, whether she realized the danger. About you and me, he said. Oh, my dear, I've kept you secret. She doesn't know we know each other, and if she did, she finished it with a wonderful look, a look of unblinking yet vaguely pitifully uncanded candor. She had always met him and would always have to meet him, with the idea that there was nothing in it. For, if she once admitted that there was anything, then they were done for. She couldn't, how could she, let him keep on coming with that thought in him, acknowledged by them both. That was where she came in, and where her secret, her gift, would work now more beneficently than ever. The beauty of it was that it would make them safe, absolutely safe. She had only got to apply it to that thought of his, and the thought would not exist.

21:33Since she could get at him, she could do for him what he poor dear, could not perhaps always do for himself. She could keep that dreadful possibility in him under. She could in fact make their communion all that she most wanted it to be. I don't like it, he said miserably. I don't like it. A little line of worry was coming in his face again. The door opened, and a maid began to go in and out, laying the table for their meal. He watched the door close on her and said, won't that woman wonder what I come for? She can see what you come for, she smiled. Why are you spoiling it with thinking things? It's for you, I think them, I don't mind. It doesn't matter so much for me, but I want you to be safe. Oh, I'm safe, my dear, she answered. You were, and you would be still if these powels hadn't found you out. He meditated. Would he suppose they've come for, he asked? They've come, I imagine, for his health.

22:33What? To a god for second place like this? They know what is done for me, so they think poor darlings, perhaps it may do something even yet for him. What's the matter with him? Being dreadful, and they say, incurable. It isn't, he paused. I can't tell you what it is. It isn't anything you'd think it was, it isn't anything bodily. I never knew it. You're not supposed to know, and you wouldn't unless you did know. And please, you don't, you don't know anything. He smiled. No, you haven't told me, have you? I only told you because you never tell things, and because, because, he waited, smiling. Because I wanted you to see he doesn't count. Well, but she's alright, I take it. At first she failed to grasp his implication, that if owing to his affliction, harding Powell didn't count, Millie his young wife did. Her faculties of observation and of inference would he took it, be unimpaired.

23:36She'll wonder, won't she, he expanded? About us, not she. She's too much wrapped up in him to notice anyone. And he, oh my dear, he's too much wrapped up in it. Another anxiety then came to him. I say, you know, he isn't dangerous as he. She laughed, dangerous, oh dear me, no, a lamb. End of chapter 1. Recording by X Patriot in Bangor, Maine. Chapter 2 of the Flo in the Crystal by Mason Claire. This Librivox recording is in the public domain, recording by X Patriot in Bangor, Maine. Chapter 2. She kept on saying to herself, why shouldn't they come? What difference did it make? Up till now she had not admitted that anything could make a difference, that anything could

24:36touch, could alter by a shade, the safe, the intangible, the unique relation between her and Rodney. It was proof against anything that anybody could think, and the Powell's were not given to thinking things. Agatha's own mind had been a crystal without a flaw in its clearness, its sincerity. It had to be to ensure the blessed working of the gift. As again it was by the blessed working of the gift that she had kept it so. She could only think of that, the secret, the gift, the inexpressible thing, as itself a flawless crystal, a charmed circle, or rather as a sphere that held all the charmed circles that you draw around things to keep them safe, to keep them holy. She had drawn her circle around Rodney Lennon in herself. Nobody could break it, they were supernaturally safe. And yet the presence of the Powell's had made a difference. She was forced to own that though she remained untouched, it had made a difference in him. It was as if in the agitation produced by them he had brushed aside some veil and had

25:40let her see something that up till now her crystal vision had refused to see, something that was more than a lurking possibility. She discovered in him a desire and intention that up till now he had concealed from her. It had left its hiding place, it rose on terrifying wings, and fluttered before her troubling her. She was reminded that though there were no lurking possibilities in her, with him it might be different. For him the tie between them might come to mean something that it had never meant and could not mean for her, something that she had refused not only to see, but to foresee and provide for. She was aware of a certain relief when Monday came and he had left her without any further unveilings and revealing. She was even glad when, about the middle of the week, the Powell's came with a cartload of luggage and settled at the farm. She said to herself that they would take her mind off him. They had a way of seizing on her and holding her attention to the exclusion of all other

26:42objects. She could hardly not have been seized and held by a case so pitiful, so desperate as theirs. This is Matt Rodgers from Los Culturistas with Matt Rodgers in Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Los Culturistas with Matt Rodgers in Bowen Yang. You know when people try a new food and suddenly it's like, wait. That's the reaction. A lot of people are having when they first try Cupid Mayo. It's the one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle. You've probably seen it in the grocery store before. And if you've ever just walked past it, some people would say that's a huge mistake. Because this mayo is different. Most mayonnaise uses whole eggs. Cupid only uses egg yolks, which gives it this rich umami flavor. It's smoother, deeper, and almost buttery. Once people try it, they start putting it on everything. Egg sandwiches, fries, burgers, some fans even swear by dipping pizza crust in it. And once you notice it, you start seeing it everywhere. Chefs use it, restaurants use it. People who really care about flavor use it. Never try it. Grab the bottle with the red cap next time you're at the store.

27:44Put it on just about anything. Then you'll understand. Cupid, the original Japanese mayonnaise. This is Ashley Akinetti from the almost famous podcast. You ever notice you and your spouse keep saying, we need to get away, but you never actually plan anything. That was us until we did something fun and spontaneous. We went to resortpass.com. There are hundreds of hotel resorts, pools and spots and private beaches that you can enjoy. You can spend the day at a luxury resort, pool, spa, massage without booking an overnight stay. Listen, I may have only been 15 minutes from home, but it felt like it was a whole different world. I'm thinking this is exactly what I needed. Disco to resortpass.com, choose your resort, choose your day, luxury resort day passes, start at just $1,5. Once you post your daycation, people are going to ask where you are. Go to resortpass.com, slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get $20 off when you spend $100.

28:44That's code almost famous at resortpass.com slash almost famous. Toyota's easy choice sales event is on. Whether you're looking for the performance of a camera, the versatility of a RAV4, the efficiency of a Corolla or all electric driving in the BZ, there's a Toyota that's just right for you. And with great deals across the lineup, now's the time to find yours. But hurry, these deals won't last long. Toyota's easy choice sales event ends soon. We make it easy. Toyota, let's go places. It had become, she learned almost at once from the face of her friend, a little pale eyed wife, whose small, flat, flower-like features were washed out and worn fine by watchings and listenings on the border on the threshold. Yes, he was worse. He had to give up his business, harding Powell was a gentle stockbroker. It wasn't any longer, Millie Powell intimated, a question of borders and of thresholds.

29:46They had passed all that. He had gone clean over, he was in the dreadful interior, and she, the resolute and vigilant little woman, had no longer any power to get him out. She was at the end of her tether. Agatha knew what he had been for years. Well, he was worse than that. Far worse than he had been, ever. Not so bad though that he had an intriples in which he knew how bad he was, and was willing to do everything to try anything. There were going to try seret end. It was her idea. She knew how marvelously it had answered with dear Agatha. Not that Agatha ever was or could be where he was poor darling. And besides, Agatha herself was an attraction. It had occurred to Millie Powell that it might do harding good to be near Agatha. There was something about her. Millie didn't know what it was, but she felt it. He felt it, and influenced her something that made for mental peace. It was, Mrs. Powell said, as if she had some secret.

30:48She hoped Agatha wouldn't mind. It couldn't possibly hurt her. He couldn't. The darling couldn't hurt a fly. He could only hurt himself. And if he got really bad, why then, of course, they would have to leave seret end. He would have, she said, sadly, to go away somewhere. But not yet. Oh, not yet. He wasn't bad enough for that. She would keep him with her up to the last possible moment. The last possible moment. Agatha could understand, couldn't she? Agatha did indeed. Millie Powell smiled her desperate white smile, and went on, always with her air of appeal to Agatha. That was why she wanted to be near her. It was awful not to be near somebody who understood, who would understand him. For Agatha would understand, wouldn't she? That to a certain extent, he must be given into. That, apart from Agatha, was why they had chosen seret end. It was a sort of place, wasn't it? Where you would go if you didn't want people to get at you.

31:49Where Millie's very voice became fervent as she explained it, you could hide. His idea, his last, seemed to be that something was trying to get at him. No, not people. Something worse, something terrible. It was always after him. The most pitiest thing about him, pitiest but adorable, was that he came to her, to her, imploring her to hide him. And so she had hidden him here. Agatha took in her friend's high courage, as she looked at the eyes where fright barely fluttered under the poised suspense. She approved of the plan. It appealed to her by its sheer audacity. She murmured that if there were anything that she could do, Millie had only to come to her. Oh well, Millie had come. What she wanted Agatha to do, if she saw him, and he should say anything about it, was simply to take the line that he was safe. Agatha said that was the line she did take. She wasn't going to let herself think, and Millie mustn't think, not for a moment,

32:52that he wasn't, that there was anything to be afraid of. Anything to be afraid of here, that's my point, Sid Millie. Mine is that here or anywhere, wherever he is, there mustn't be any fear. How can he get better if we keep him wrapped in it? You're not afraid. You're not afraid. Persistent, invincible affirmation was part of her method, her secret. She replied a little wearily, she knew nothing about the method. I haven't time to be afraid, she said, and as long as you're not, if you, who matter, Agatha cried, you're so near him, don't you realize what it means to be so near? Millie smiled sadly, tenderly, as if she didn't know. My dear, that's all that keeps me going. I've got to make him feel that he's protected. He is protected, Sid Agatha. Actually she was drawing her charm circle around him. As long as I hold out, if I give in he's done for. You mustn't think it, you mustn't say it.

33:53But I know it, oh my dear, I'm all he's got. At that she looked for a moment as if she might break down. She said the terrible part of it was that they were left so much alone. People were beginning to shrink from him to be afraid of him. You know Sid Agatha, I'm not, you must bring him to see me. A little woman had risen, as she said, to go to him. She stood there visibly hesitating. She couldn't bring him, he wouldn't come. But Agatha go with her and see him. Agatha went. As they approached the farm, she sought to her amazement, that the door was shut and the blinds, the ugly, ochorous yellow blinds, were down in all the nine windows of the front, the windows of the Powell's rooms. The house was like a house of the dead. We get the sun on this side, she said, and as she said it she realized this stupidity of her question. For the nine windows looked to the east, and the sun wheeling down the west had been in their faces as they came.

34:53Millie answered mechanically, no, we don't get any sun. She added with an irrelevant that was only apparent, I've had to take all four rooms to keep other people out. They never comes to Agatha. No Sid Millie, but if they did. The front door was locked, Millie had the key, when they had entered, Agatha saw her turn in the lock again slowly and without a sound. All the doors were shut in the passage, and it was dark there. Millie opened a door on the left at the foot of the steep stairs. He will be in here she said. The large room was lit with a thick ochorous light through the squares of its drawn blinds. A ran the whole width of the house and had a third window looking west where the yellow light prevailed. A horrible light it was. It cast thin, turbid brown shadows on the walls. Harding Powell was sitting between the drawn blinds, alone in the black hollow of the chimney-place. He crouched in his chair, and his bowed back was towards them, as they stood there on

35:56the threshold. Harding said Millie, Agatha has come to see you. He turned in his chair and rose as they entered. His chin was sunk on his chest, and the first thing Agatha noticed was the difficult, slow, forward-thrusting movement with which he lifted it. His eyes seemed to come up last of all from the depths to meet her. With a peculiar foreign courtesy he bowed his head again over her hand as he held it. He apologized for the darkness in which they found him. Harding Powell's manners had always been perfect, and his struck Agatha as strange and pathetic that his malady should have left untouched the incomparable quality he had. Millie went to the windows and drew the blinds up. The light revealed him in his exquisite perfection, his small fragile finish. He was fifth year thereabouts, but slight as a boy, and nervous and dark as Englishman are dark. Jawa and Chin shaven, his mouth hidden by the straight droop of his mustache.

36:57When the eyes downwards the outlines of his face and features were of an extreme regularity, and a fineness undistroid by the work of the strained nerves on the salo-dallicate texture. But his eyes, dark as an animal, were the eyes of a terrified thing, a thing hunted and on the watch, a thing that listened continually for the soft feet of the hunter. Above these eyes his brows were twisted, were tortured with his terror. He turned to his wife. Did you lock the door dear, he said? I did, but you know, Harding, we needn't hear. He shivered slightly and began to walk up and down before the hearth-place. When he had his back to Millie, Millie followed him with her eyes of anguish. When he turned and faced her she met him with her white smile. Presently he spoke again. He wondered whether they would object to his drawing the blinds down. He was afraid he would have to. Otherwise he said he would be seen. Millie laid her hand on the arm that he stretched towards the window.

38:00Darling, she said, you've forgotten. You can't possibly be seen here. It's just the one place, isn't it, Agatha, where you can't be? Her eyes signaled to Agatha to support her. Not but what she had perfect confidence in the plan. It was Agatha ascented. And Agatha knows, said Millie. He shivered again. He had turned to Agatha. Forgive me if I suggest that you cannot really know. Even forbid that you should know. Millie intent on her plan persisted. But dearest, you said yourself it was, the one place. I said that. When did I say it? Yesterday. Yesterday? I dare say, but I didn't sleep last night it wouldn't let me. Very few people do sleep, said Agatha, for the first time in a strange place. The place isn't strange. That's what I complain of. That's what keeps me awake. The place ever will be strange when it's there, and it was there last night.

39:00Darling, Millie murmured. You know what I mean, he said. The thing that keeps me awake. Of course if I'd slept last night I'd have known it wasn't there, but when I didn't sleep, he left it to them to draw the only possible conclusion. They dropped the subject. They turned to other things and talked a little while, sitting with him in his room with the drawn blinds. From time to time when they appealed to him he gave an urbane ascent, a murmur, a swav motion of his hand. When the light went they lit a lamp. Agatha stayed and dined with them, that being the best thing she could do. At nine o'clock she rose and said goodnight to Harding Powell. He smiled a drawn smile. Ah, if I could sleep he said. That's the worst of it, his not sleeping said Millie at the gate. He will sleep. He will sleep said Agatha. Millie sighed. She knew he wouldn't. The plan she said was no good after all. It wouldn't work.

40:02End of chapter 2. Recording by Expatriot in Bangor, Maine. Chapter 3 of the Flo- This is Matt Rogers from Los Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Los Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. You know when people try new food and suddenly it's like wait. That's the reaction. A lot of people are having when they first try cutie mayo. It's the one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle. You probably seen it in the grocery store before. And if you've ever just walked past it some people would say that's a huge mistake. Because this mayo is different. Most mayonnaise uses whole eggs. Cutie only uses egg yolks which gives it this rich umami flavor. It's smoother, deeper and almost buttery. Once people try it they start putting it on everything. Examages, fries, burgers, some fans even swear by dipping pizza crust in it. And once you notice it you start seeing it everywhere. Chefs use it, restaurants use it.

41:02People who really care about flavor use it. Never try it. Grab the bottle with the red cap next time you're at the store. Put it on just about anything. Then you'll understand. Cutie, the original Japanese mayonnaise. This is Ashley Akinetti from the Almost Amused Podcast. You ever notice you and your spouse keep saying we need to get away but you never actually plan anything. That was us until we did something fun and spontaneous. We went to resort pass.com. There are hundreds of hotel resorts. Pools and spas and private beaches that you can enjoy. You can spend the day at a luxury resort. Pool spa massage without booking an overnight stay. And listen I may have only been like 15 minutes from home but it felt like it was a whole different world. And I'm thinking this is exactly what I needed. So just go to resort pass.com. Choose your resort. Choose your day. Luxury resort day passes start at just $25. Once you post your daycation people are going to ask where you are. Go to resort pass.com slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get

42:06$20 off when you spend $100. That's code almost famous at resort pass.com slash almost famous. Toyota's easy choice sales event is on. Whether you're looking for the performance of the camera, the versatility of her app for the efficiency of a Corolla or all electric driving in the BZ. There's a Toyota that's just right for you. And with great deals across the lineup now's the time to find yours. But hurry these deals won't last long. Toyota's easy choice sales event and soon. We make it easy. Toyota let's go places. All in the crystal by Mason Claire. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by ex-patriot and Bangor mean. Chapter 3 How could it? There was nothing behind it. All Millie's plans had been like that. They felt a dust. They were dust. They had been always that pitiful, desperate stirring of the dust to hide the terror, the

43:08feudal throwing of the dust in the poor things eyes. As if he couldn't see through it. As if with a supernatural lucidity, the invincible cunning of the insane, he didn't see through anything and provide for it. It was really only his indestructible urbanity, persisting through the wreck of him that bore tolerantly, temperately, with Millie and her plans. Without it he might be dangerous. After that, as long as it lasted, little Millie planned as she would was safe. But they couldn't count on its lasting. Agatha had realized it from the moment when she had seen him draw down the blind again, after his wife had drawn it up. That was the maddest thing he had done yet. She had shuttered at it as that in act of violence. It outraged cruelly his exquisite quality. It was so unlike him. She was not sure that Millie hadn't even made things worse by her latest plan, the flight to Sarah's end. It emphasized the fact that they were flying, that they had to fly.

44:11It had brought her to the house with the drawn blinds and the closed barred valley to the end of the world, to the end of her tether. And when she realized that it was the end, when he realized it, Agatha couldn't leave him there. She couldn't, which she had the secret, leave him to pour million her plans. That had been in her mind when she had insisted on it that he would sleep. She knew what Millie meant by her sigh and the look she gave her. If Millie could have been in polite, she would have told her that it was all very well to say so, but how were they going to make him? And she too felt that something more was required of her than that irritating affirmation. She had got to make him. His case, his pittiest case, cried out for an extension of the gift. She hadn't any doubt as to its working. There were things she didn't know about it yet, but she was sure of that. She had proved it by a hundred experimental intermissions, abstentions, and recoveries.

45:12In order to be sure you had only to let go and see how you got on without it. She had tried in that way with skepticism and precaution on herself, but not in the beginning. She could not say that she had tried it in the beginning at all, even on herself. It had simply come to her as she put it by a divine accident. Heaven knew she had needed it. She had been like Rodney Lanyon on the verge where he poor deer had brought her. So impossible had it been then to bear her knowledge and what was worse, her divination of the things he bore from Bella. It was her divination, her compassion that had wrecked her as she stood aside, cut off from him. She on the verge and she near it, looking on, powerless to help while Bella tore at him. Talk of the verge, the wonder was they hadn't gone clean over it both of them. She couldn't say then from what region, what tract of unexplored, incredible mystery, her help had come.

46:13It came one day, one night when she was at her worst. She remembered how with some resurgent, ultimate instinct of surrender, she had sunk on the floor of her room, flung out her arms across the bed in the supreme gesture of supplication, and thus gone, eyes shut and with no motion of thought or sense in her, clean into the blackness where as if it had been waiting for her, the thing had found her. It had found her. Agatha was precise on that point. She had not found it. She had not even stumbled on it, blundered up against it in the blackness. The way it worked, the wonder of her instantaneous well-being had been the first, the very first hint she had that it was there. She had never quite recaptured her primal virgin sense of it. But to set against that, she had entered more and more into possession. She had found out the secret of its working and had controlled it, reduced it to an almost intelligible method.

47:14You could think of it as a current of transcendent power, hitherto mysteriously inhibited. You made the connection, having cut off all other currents that interfered, and then you simply turned it on. In other words, if you could put it into words at all, you shut your eyes and ears, you closed up the sense of touch, you made everything dark around you, and withdrew into your innermost self. You burrowed deep into the darkness there till you got beyond it, you tapped the power as it were, underground, at any point you pleased, and turned it on in any direction. She could turn it on to harding Powell without any loss to Rodney Lanyon, for it was immeasurable, inexhaustible. She looked back at the farmhouse with its veiled windows, formless and immense, the shadow of harding Powell swayed uneasily on one of the yellow blinds. Across the field her own house showed pure and dim against the darkening slope behind it,

48:14showed a washed and watered white in the liquid-lucid twilight. Her house was open always, and on every side it flung out its casement arms to the night and to the day. And now all the lamps were lit. Every doorway was a golden shaft, every window a golden square. The whiteness of its walls quivered and the blurred edges flowed into the dark of the garden. It was the fragile shell of a sacred and a burning light. She did not go in all at once. She crossed the river and went up the hill through the beachwood. She walked there every evening in the darkness, calling her thoughts home to sleep. The eastern moon, golden white and holy, looked down at her, shined under the long sharp arch of the beach-trees. It was like going up and up towards a dim sanctuary where the holiest sat in throne. A sense of consecration was upon her. It came, solemn and pure and still, out of the tumult of her tenderness and pity.

49:16It was too awful for pity and for tenderness. It aspired like a flame and lost itself in light. It grew like a wave till it was faster than any tenderness or any pity. It was as if her heart rose on the swell of it, and was carried away into a rhythm so tremendous that her own pulses of compassion were no longer felt, or felt only as the hushed and delicate vibration of the wave. She recognized her state. She was the blessed state desired as the condition of the working of the gift. She turned when the last arch of the beach-trees broke and opened to the sky at the top of the hill, where the moon hung in immensity, free of her hill, free of the shrine that held her. She went down with slow, soft footsteps as if she carried herself her whole fragile being as a vessel, a crystal vessel for the holy thing, and was careful less to touch of the earth should jar and break her.

50:20CHAPTER IV CHAPTER IV of the Float in the Crystal by Mason Claire This Libri Vach recording is in the public domain, recording by Expatriot in Bangor Maine. CHAPTER IV She went still more gently and with half-shot eyes through her illuminated house. She turned the lights out in her room and undressed herself in the darkness. She laid herself on the bed with straight, lax limbs, with arms held apart a little from her body, with eyelids shut lightly on her eyes, all fleshly contacts were diminished. It was now as if her being drank at every pore the swimming darkness, as if the rhythm of her heart and of her breath had ceased in the pulse of its invasion. She sank in it and was covered with wave upon wave of darkness.

51:22She sank and was upheld, she dissolved and was gathered together again a flawless crystal. She was herself the heart of the charmed circle, poised in the ultimate unspeakable stillness, beyond death, beyond birth, beyond the movements that vehemence the agitations of the world. She drew harding Powell into it and held him there. To draw him to any purpose she had first to loosen and destroy the fleshly sinister image of him that for the moment of evocation hung like a picture on the darkness, in a moment the fleshly image receded, it sank back into the darkness. His name, Harding Powell, was now the only earthly sign of him that she suffered to appear. In the third moment his name was blotted out, and then it was as if she drew him by intangible, super-sensible threads. She touched with no sense of peril, his innermost essence. The walls of flesh were down between them, she had got at him.

52:25And having gut at him she held him, a bloodless spirit, a bodyless essence in the fount of healing. She said to herself, he will sleep now, he will sleep, he will sleep. And as she slid into her own sleep she held and drew him with her. He would sleep, he would be alright as long as she slept. Her sleep she had discovered did more than carry on the amazing act of communion and redemption. It clinched it. It was the seal on the bond. Early the next morning she went over to the farm, the blinds were up, the doors and windows were flung open, Millie met her at the garden gate. She stopped her and walked a little way with her across the field. It's worked, she said. It's worked after all, like magic. For a moment Agatha wondered whether Millie had guessed anything, whether she'd divine the secret and had brought him there for that and had refused to acknowledge it before she knew.

53:27What has she asked? The plan, the place he slept last night, ten hours straight on end, I know, for I stayed awake and watched him, and this morning, oh my dear, if you- This is Matt Rogers from Los Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Los Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. You know when people try on new food and suddenly it's like, wait, that's the reaction. A lot of people are having when they first try cutie mayo. It's the one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle. You've probably seen it in the grocery store before. And if you've ever just walked past it, some people would say that's a huge mistake. Because this mayo is different. Most mayonnaise uses whole eggs. Cutie only uses egg yolks, which gives it this rich umami flavor. It's smoother, deeper and almost buttery. Once people try it, they start putting it on everything. It's sandwiches, fries, burgers, some fans even swear by dipping pizza crust in it. And once you notice it, you start seeing it everywhere. Chefs use it, restaurants use it. People who really care about flavor use it.

54:29Never try it, grab the bottle with the red cap next time you're out of the store. Put it on just about anything, then you'll understand. Cutie, the original Japanese mayonnaise. This is Ashley Akinetti from the almost-amused podcast. You ever notice you and your spouse keep saying, we need to get away, but you never actually plan anything. That was us until we did something fun and spontaneous. We went to resortpass.com. There are hundreds of hotel resorts, pools and spots and private beaches that you can enjoy. You can spend the day at a luxury resort, pool, spa, massage without booking an overnight stay. And listen, I may have only been like 15 minutes from home, but it felt like it was a whole different world. And I'm thinking, this is exactly what I needed. So, just go to resortpass.com, choose your resort, choose your day, luxury, resort, day passes, start at just $25. Once you post your daycation, people are going to ask where you are. Go to resortpass.com, slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get $20 off when you spend $100.

55:32That's code almost famous at resortpass.com slash almost famous. Who knew ice cold drinks could be so fire? Try them all only at my thumbs. You could see him, he's all right. He's all right. And you think, said Agatha, it's the place. Millie knew nothing, guest, divine nothing. Why, what else can it be, she said? What does he think? He doesn't think. He can't account for it. He says himself, it's miraculous. Perhaps that Agatha, it is. There was silent a moment over the wonder of it. I can't get over it, said Millie presently. It's so odd that it should make all that difference. I could understand it if it had worked that way at first, but it didn't. Think of him yesterday, and yet if it isn't the place, what is it?

56:33What is it? Agatha did not answer. She wasn't going to tell Millie what it was. If she did, Millie wouldn't believe her, and Millie's unbelief might work against it. It might prove for all she knew an inimical disastrous power. Come and see for yourself, Millie spoke as if it had been Agatha who doubted. They turned again towards the house. Powell had come out and was in the garden leaning on the gate. They could see how right he was by the mere fact of his being there, presenting himself like that to the vivid light. He opened the gate for them, raising his hat and smiling as they came. His face witnessed to the wonder worked on him. The color showed clean, purged of his taint. His eyes were candid and pure under brows smooth by sleep. As they went in, he stood for a moment in the open doorway, and looked at the view, admiring the river in the green valley, and the bare upland fields under the wood.

57:36It always had, it was part of his rare quality, a prodigious capacity for admiration. My God, he said, how beautiful the world is! He looked at Millie, and all that is an patch on my wife. He looked at her with tenderness and admiration, and the look was the flower, the perfection of his sanity. Millie drew in her breath with a little sound like a sob. Her joy was so great that it was almost unbearable. Then he looked at Agatha and admired the green gown she wore. You don't know, he said, how exquisitely right you are. She smiled. She knew how exquisitely right he was. Chapter 4 9 Night after night she continued, and without an effort, it was as easy as drawing

58:53your breath. It was indeed the breath you drew. She found that she had no longer to devote hours to hurting Powell, any more than she gave hours to Rodney. She could do his business in moments and points of inappreciable time. It was as if from night to night the times swung together and made one enduring timeless time, for the process belonged to a region that was not of times or time. She wasn't afraid then of not giving enough time to it, but she was afraid of omitting it all together. She knew that every intermission would be followed by a relapse, and a harding state did not admit of any relapses. Of course, if time had counted, if the thing was measurable, she would have been afraid of losing hold of Rodney Lanyon. She held him now by a single slender thread, and the thread was bella. She worked it regularly now through bella. She was bound to be alright as long as bella was, for his possibilities of suffering were

59:54thus cut off at their source. Besides it was the only way to preserve the purity of her intention, the flawlessness of the crystal. That was the blessedness of her attitude to harding Powell. It was passionless, impersonal. She wanted nothing of harding Powell except to help him, and to help Millie, dear little Millie. And never before had she been given so complete, so overwhelming a sense of having helped. It was nothing, unless it was a safeguard against vanity that they didn't know it, that they persisted in thinking that it was Millie's plan that worked. Not that that altogether accounted for it to harding Powell. He said so at last to Agatha. They were returning, he and she, by the edge of the wood at the top of the steep field after a long walk. He had asked her to go with him. It was her country, for a good stretch, further than Millie's little feet could carry her. They stood a moment up there and looked around them. April was coming on, but the ploughed land of their feet was still bare, the earth waited.

1:00:58On that side of the valley she was delicately unfruitful, spent with rearing the fine thin beauty of the woods. But down below the valley ran over with young grass and poured it to the river and wave after wave, till the last surge of green rounded over the water's edge. Rain had fallen in the night, and the river had risen, it rested there, poised. It was wonderful how a thing so brimming, so shining, so alive, could be so still, still as marsh water flat to the flat land. At that moment in a flash that came like a shifting of her eyes, the world she looked at suffered a change. And yet it did not change. All the appearances of things, their colors, the movement and the stillness remained as if constant in their rhythm and their scale, but they were heightened, intensified. They were carried to a pitch that would have been vehement, vibrant, but that the stillness as well as the movement was intense.

1:01:59She was not dazzled by it or confused in any way. Her senses were exalted, adjusted to the pitch. She would have said now that the earth at her feet had become insubstantial, but that she knew in her flash that what she saw was the very substance of the visible world. Live and subtle as flame, solid as crystal and as clean, it was the same world flat field for flat field and hill for hill, but radiant, vibrant and as it were infinitely transparent. Agatha in her moment saw that the whole world brimmed and shone and was alive with the joy that was its life. Joy that flowed flood high and yet was still. In every leaf and every blade of grass, this life was manifest as a strange, a divine translucent. She was about to point it out to the man at her side when she remembered that he had eyes for the beauty of the earth, but no sense of its secret and supernatural light.

1:02:59Being powled denied, he always had denied the supernatural, and when she turned to him, her vision had passed from her. They must have another tramp someday, he said. He wanted to see more of this wonderful place, and then he spoke of his recovery. It's all very well, he said, but I can't account for it. Milley says it's the place. It is a wonderful place at Agatha. Not so wonderful there's all that. You saw how I was a day after we came. Well, it can't be the place altogether. I rather hope it isn't Agatha said. Do you? What do you think it is then? I think it's something in you. Of course, of course, but what started it? That's what I want to know. Somethings happened, something queer and spontaneous and unaccountable. It's uncanny. For, you know, I oughtn't to feel like this. I got bad news this morning. Bad news? Yes, my sister's little girl is very ill.

1:03:59They think it's meningitis. They're an awful trouble, and I, I'm feeling like this. Don't let it distress you. It doesn't distress me. It only puzzles me. That's the odd thing. Of course I'm sorry, and I'm anxious and all that, but I feel so well. You are well. Don't be morbid. I haven't told my wife yet about the child I mean. I simply don't. It'll frighten her. She won't know how I'll take it, and she'll think it'll make me go all queer again. He paused and turned to her. I say. If she did know how I'm taking it, she'd think that awfully queer, wouldn't she? He paused. The worst of it is he said I've got to tell her. Will you leave it to me, Agatha said? I think I can make it all right. How he queried. Never mind how I can. Well, he has sent it, there's hardly anything you can't do. That was how she came to tell Millie. She made up her mind to tell her that evening as they sat alone in Agatha's house.

1:05:01Harding, Millie said, was happy over there with his books just as he used to be only more so. So much more so that she was a little disturbed about it. She was afraid it wouldn't last. And again she said it was the place, the wonderful, wonderful place. If you wanted to last, Agatha said, don't go on thinking it's the place. Why shouldn't it be? I feel that he's safe here. He's out of it. Things can't reach him. Bad news reached him today. Aggy, what? Millie whispered in her fright. His sister is very anxious about her little girl. What's wrong? Agatha repeated what she had heard from Harding Powell. Oh! Millie was dumb for an instant while she thought of her sister-in-law then she cried aloud, if the child dies it will make him ill again. No, Millie, it won't. It will, I tell you. It's always been that sort of thing that does it. And supposing there was something that keeps it off.

1:06:02What is there? What is there? I believe there's something. Would you mind awfully if it wasn't the place? What do you mean, Agatha? There was a faint resentment in Millie's agonized tone. It was then that Agatha told her. She made it out for her as far as she had made it out at all, with the difference that a decent attitude required. Millie raised doubts which subsided in a kind of awe when Agatha faced her with the evidence of dates. You remember Millie the night when he slept? I do remember. He said himself it was miraculous. She meditated. And so you think it's that she said presently. I do indeed. If I dared leave off, I'd dare it. You'd see for yourself. This is Matt Rodgers from Los Cultures. He's dust with Matt Rodgers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Los Cultures. He's dust with Matt Rodgers and Bowen Yang. You know when people try a new food and suddenly it's like, wait. That's the reaction. A lot of people are having when they first try Cupid Mayo.

1:07:03It's the one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle. You've probably seen it in the grocery store before. And if you've ever just walked past it, some people would say that's a huge mistake. Because this mayo is different. Most mayonnaise uses whole eggs. Cupid only uses egg yolks, which gives it this rich umami flavor. It's smoother, deeper, and almost buttery. Once people try it, they start putting it on everything. Egg sandwiches, fries, burgers, some fans even swear by dipping pizza crust in it. And once you notice it, you start seeing it everywhere. Chefs use it, restaurants use it. People who really care about flavor use it. Never try it. Grab the bottle with the red cap next time you're at the store. Put it on just about anything. Then you'll understand. Cupid, the original Japanese mayonnaise. This is Ashley Akinetti from the almost famous podcast. You ever notice you and your spouse keep saying, we need to get away, but you never actually plan anything. That was us until we did something fun and spontaneous. We went to resortpass.com. There are hundreds of hotel resorts, pools and spots and private beaches that you can enjoy.

1:08:06You can spend the day at a luxury resort, pool, spa, massage without booking an overnight stay. And listen, I may have only been like 15 minutes from home, but it felt like it was a whole different world. And I'm thinking this is exactly what I needed. So just go to resortpass.com, choose your resort, choose your day, luxury resort day passes start at just $1,000. Once you post your daycation, people are going to ask where you are. Go to resortpass.com, slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get $20 off when you spend $100. That's code almost famous at resortpass.com slash almost famous. McDonald's is putting value back on the menu. Whether you're craving a big mac, McNuggets or sausage egg and cheese, McGrittle's, make it a meal and save. Your favorite is now your wallet's favorite too. Extra value meals are back. One rises, prices fall, get a sausage McMuffin with egg or sausage egg and cheese McGrittle's

1:09:09small hot coffee and hash frowns for just $6. Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing. What do you think you've got hold of? I don't know yet. There was a long deep silence which Millie broke. What do you do, she said? I don't do anything. It isn't me. I see said Millie. I've prayed. You didn't think I hadn't. It's not that. Not anything you mean by it. And yet it is. Only it's more. Much more. I can't explain it. I only know it isn't me. She was beginning to feel vaguely uncomfortable about having told her. And Millie, you mustn't tell him. Promise me you won't tell him. No, I won't tell him. Because you see, he'd think it was all rot. He would said Millie. It's the sort of thing he does think rot. And that might prevent it's working. Millie smiled faintly. I haven't the ghost of an idea what it is.

1:10:09But whatever it is, can you go on doing it? Yes, I think so. You see, it depends rather. It depends on what? Oh, on a lot of things. On your sincerity. On your purity. It depends so much on that that it frightens you. Let's perhaps you might and after all be so very pure. Millie smiled again a little differently. Darling, if that's all, I'm not frightened. Only supposing you gave out, you might, you know. I might, but it couldn't. You mustn't think it's me, Millie. Because if anything happened to me, if I did give out, don't you see how it would let him down? It's as bad as thinking it's the place. Doesn't matter what it is or who it is, said Millie passionately. As long as her tears came and stopped her. Agatha devined the source of Millie's passion. Then you don't mind Millie. You'll let me go on. Millie rose. She turned abruptly, holding her head high, so that she might not spill her tears.

1:11:14Agatha went with her over the gray field towards the farm. They paused at the gate, Millie spoke. Are you sure she said? Certain. And you won't leave go. Her eyes shone towards her friends in the twilight. You will go on. You must go on. Ah, how? Believing that he'll be all right. Oh, Aggie, he was devoted to Millie, and if the child dies, end of chapter five, Recording by Expatriot in Bangor, Maine. Chapter six of the flaw in the crystal by Mason Claire. This Librivaks recording is in the public domain, Recording by Expatriot in Bangor, Maine. Chapter six. The child died three days later. Millie came over to Agatha with the news. She said it had been an awful shock, of course.

1:12:15She'd been dreading something like that for him, but he'd taken it wonderfully. If he came out of it all right, she would believe in what she called Agatha's thing. He did come out of it all right. His behavior was the crowning proof if Millie wanted more proof of his sanity. He went up to London and made all the arrangements for his sister. When he returned, he forced old Millie's specious consolations with the truth. It was better, he told her, that the dear little girl should have died for there was distinct brain trouble anyway. He took it as a sane man takes a terrible alternative. Weeks passed. He had grown accustomed to his own sanity and no longer marveled at it. And still without intermission, Agatha went on. She had been so far affected by Millie's fright that was the worst of Millie's knowing, that she held onto harding Powell with a slightly exaggerated intensity. She even began to give more and more time to him, she who had made out that time in this process did not matter.

1:13:16She was afraid of letting go, because the consequences Millie was perpetually reminding her of the consequences of letting go would be awful. From Millie kept her at it. Millie urged her on. Millie and Millie's own words sustained her. She praised her. She praised the secret, praised the power. She said you could see how it worked. It was tremendous. It was inexhaustible. Millie, familiarized with its working, had become a fanatical believer in the power. But she had her own theory. She knew, of course, that they were all, she and Agatha and poor harding, dependent on the power, that it was the power that did it and not Agatha. But Agatha was there one link with it, and if the link gave way, where were they? Agatha felt that Millie watched her and wailade her, that she was suspicious of failures and of intermissions, that she wondered that she peered and pried. Millie would, if she could, have stuck her fingers into what she called the machinery of

1:14:18the thing. Its vagueness baffled and even annoyed her for her mind was limited. It loved and was at home with limits. It desired above all things precise ideas, names, phrases, anything that constricted and defined. But still, with it all, she believed, and the great thing was that Millie should believe. She might have worked havoc if with her temperament she had doubted. What did suffer was the fine poise, with which she, Agatha, had held Rodney Lennon and Harding Powell, each by his own thread. Millie had compelled her to spin a stronger thread for Harding, and, as it were, to multiply her thread so as to hold him at all points. And because of this, because of giving more and more time to him, she could not always loose him from her and let him go. And she was afraid, lest the pull he had on her might weaken Rodney's thread. Up till now the Powell's third week at Sarah End, she had had the assurance that his thread

1:15:21still held. She heard from him that Bella was all right, which meant that he too was all right, for there had never been anything wrong with him but Bella. And she had a further glimpse of the way the gift worked as wonders. Three Fridays had passed and he had not come. Well, she had meant that. She had tried, on that last Friday of his, with a crystal sincerity to hold him back so that he should not come. Up till now, within ease it simply amazed her she had kept herself at the highest pitch of her sincere and beautiful intention. Not that it was the intention that had failed her now. She had succeeded so beautifully, so perfectly, that he had no need to come at all. She had given Bella back to him. She had given him back to Bella. Only she faced the full perfection of her work. She had brought it to so fine a point that she would never see him again. She had gone to the root of it. She had taken from him the desire to see her. And now it was as if subtly, insidiously, her relation to him had become inverted.

1:16:27Whereas Hiddertu, it had been she who had been necessary to him, it seemed now that he was far more beyond all comparison, more necessary to her. After all, Rodney had had Bella, and she had nobody but Rodney. He was the one solitary thing she cared for. And Hiddertu, it had not mattered so immensely for all her caring whether he came to her or not. Seeing him had been perhaps a small mortal joy, but it had not been the tremendous and essential thing. She had been contented, satisfied beyond all mortal contentments and satisfactions, with the intangible immaterial tie. Now she longed with an unendurable longing for his visible bodily presence. She had not realized her joy as long as it was with her. She had refused to acknowledge it because of its mortal quality, and it had raised no cry that troubled her abiding spiritual calm. But now that she had put it from her, it thrust itself on her, it cried, it clung

1:17:30pitiously to her and would not let her go. She looked back to the last year, her year of Fridays, and saw it following her, following and intreating. She looked forward, and she saw Friday after Friday coming upon her, a procession of pitiless days trampling it down, her small pitius mortal joy, and her mortality rose in her and revolted. She had been disturbed by what she had called the lurking possibilities in Rodney. They were nothing to the lurking possibilities in her. There were moments when her desire to see Rodney sickened her with its importunity. Each time she beat it back in an instant, to its burrow below the threshold, and it hid there, it ran underground. There were ways below the threshold by which desire could get at him. After four one night, Tuesday of the fourth week she cut him off. She refused to hold him even by a thread. It was Bella, and Bella only that she held now.

1:18:31On Friday of that week she heard from him. Bella was still all right, but he wasn't. Anything but. He didn't know what was the matter with him. He supposed it was the same old thing again. He couldn't think how poor Bella stood him, but she did. It must be awfully bad for her. She was beastly, wasn't it, that he should have got like that just when Bella was so well. She might have known it. She had in fact known. Having once held him, and having healed him, she had no right as long as the power consented to work through her, she had no right to let him go. She began again from the beginning, from the first process of purification and surrender. But what followed was different now. She had not only to recapture the crystal serenity, the holiness of that state by which she had held Rodney Lanyon and had healed him. She had to recover the poise by which she had held him and harding Powell together. And the effort to recover it became a striving, a struggle in which harding persisted and prevailed.

1:19:34Yes, there was no blinking it, he prevailed. She had been prepared for it, but not as for a thing that could really happen. It was contrary to all that she knew of the beneficent working of the power. She thought she knew all its ways, its silences, its reassurances, its inexplicable reservations and deviations. She couldn't be prepared for this, that it, the high and holy, the unspeakably pure thing should allow harding to prevail, should connive, that was what it looked like, at his taking the gift into his own hands and turning it to his own advantage against Rodney Lanyon. This is Matt Rodgers from Lost Culture East, that's with Matt Rodgers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Lost Culture East, that's with Matt Rodgers and Bowen Yang. You know when people try a new food and suddenly it's like, wait, that's the reaction. A lot of people are having when they first try Cupid Mayo. It's the one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle, you probably seen it in the grocery store before. And if you've ever just walked past it, some people would say that's a huge mistake,

1:20:37because this mayo is different. With mayonnaise uses whole eggs, Cupid only uses egg yolks, which gives it this rich umami flavor. It's smoother, deeper, and almost buttery. Once people try it, they start putting it on everything. Egg sandwiches, fries, burgers, some fans even swear by dipping pizza crust in it. And once you notice it, you start seeing it everywhere. Chefs use it, restaurants use it, people who really care about flavor use it. Never try it, grab the bottle with the red cap next time you're out of the store. Put it on just about anything. Then you'll understand. Cupid, the original Japanese mayonnaise. This is Ashley Akinetti from the almost famous podcast. You ever notice you and your spouse keep saying, we need to get away, but you never actually plan anything. That was us until we did something fun and spontaneous. We went to resortpass.com. There are hundreds of hotel resorts, pools and spots and private beaches that you can enjoy. You can spend the day at a luxury resort, pool, spa, massage without booking an overnight stay.

1:21:37And I may have only been like 15 minutes from home, but it felt like it was a whole different world. And I'm thinking, this is exactly what I needed. So just go to resortpass.com, choose your resort, choose your day, luxury resort day passes start at just $1,000. Once you post your daycation, people are going to ask where you are. Go to resortpass.com slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get $20 off when you spend $100. This code almost famous at resortpass.com slash almost famous. McDonald's is putting value back on the menu. Whether you're craving a big mac, McNuggets or sausage egg and cheese McGrittle's, make it a meal and save. Your favorite is now your wallet's favorite too. Extra value meals are back. Sun rises, prices fall, get a sausage Mcmuffin with egg or sausage egg and cheese McGrittle's small hot coffee and hash frowns for just $6. Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.

1:22:40It was her fear at last that made her right to Rodney. She wrote in the beginning of the fifth week, she was counting the weeks now. She only wanted to know she said that he was better, that he was well. She begged him to write and tell her that he was well. He did not write. And every night of that week in those states of hers, Powell prevailed. He was becoming almost a visible presence and pressed upon the blackness of the state. All she could do then was to evoke the visible image of Rodney Lanyon and place it there over Harding's image obliterating him. Now, properly speaking, the state, the perfection of it, did not admit a visible presence. And that Harding could so impress himself, showed more than anything the extent to which he had prevailed. He prevailed to such good purpose that he was now, Millie said, well enough to go back to business. They were to leave Sarat end in about ten days when they would have been there seven weeks.

1:23:41She had come over on the Sunday to let Agatha know that, and also she said to make a confession. Millie's face, as she said it, was all candor. It had filled out. It had bloomed in her happiness. It was shadowless, featureless almost like a flower. She had done what she said she wouldn't do. She had told Harding, oh Millie, what on earth did you do that for? Agatha's voice was strange. I thought it better, Millie said, revealing the fine complacence of her character. Why better? Because secrecy is bad, and he was beginning to wonder, he wanted to go back to business, and he wouldn't because he thought it was the place that did it. I see said Agatha, and what does he think it is now? He thinks it's you, dear, but I told you. I told you that was what you were not to think. My dear, it's an immense concession that he should think it's you. A concession to what? Well, I suppose, to the supernatural.

1:24:41Millie, you shouldn't have told him. You don't know what harm you might have done. I'm not sure even now that you have not done harm. Oh, have I, said Millie, triumphantly? You've only got to look at him. When did you tell him then? I told him, let me see, it was a week ago last Friday. Agatha was silent. She wondered. It had been after Friday a week ago that he had prevailed so terribly. Agatha said, Millie solemnly, when we go away, you won't lose sight of him. You won't let go of him. You needn't be afraid. I doubt now if he will let go of me. How do you mean now? Millie flushed slightly as a flower might flush. Now that you've told him, now that he thinks it's me. Perhaps, said Millie, that was why I told him. I don't want him to let go. End of chapter 6. Recording by X Patriot in Bangor, Maine.

1:25:45Chapter 7 of the Floor in the Crystal by Mason Claire. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by X Patriot in Bangor, Maine. Chapter 7. It was a six-week and still Rodney did not write, and Agatha was more and more afraid. By this time she had definitely connected her fear with Harding Powell's dominion and persistence. She was certain now that what she could only call his importunity had proved somehow disastrous to Rodney Lanyon. And with it all, unacknowledged, beaten back, her desire to see Rodney ran to and fro in the burrows underground. He did not write, but on the Friday of that week the sixth week he came. She saw him coming up the garden path, and she shrank back into her room, but the light searched her and found her and he saw her there. He never knocked. He came straight and swiftly to her through the open doors. He shut the door of the room behind him and held her by her arms with both his hands.

1:26:49Rodney she said, Did you mean to come or did I make you? I meant to come. You couldn't make me. Couldn't die. Oh say I couldn't. You could, he said, but you didn't. And what does it matter so long as I'm here? Let me look at you. She held him at arm's length and turned him to the light. He showed his face white, worn as it used to be, all the little lines of worry back again, and two new ones that drew down the corners of his mouth. You've been ill, she said. You are ill. No, I'm alright. What's the matter with you? With me, nothing. Do I look as if anything was wrong? You look as if you'd been frightened. He paused, considering it. This place isn't good for you. You oughtn't to be here like this all by yourself. Oh Rodney, it's the dearest place. I love every inch of it. Besides I'm not all together by myself. He did not seem to hear her, and what he said next arose evidently out of his own thoughts.

1:27:50I say, are those powels still here? They've been here all the time. Do you see much of them? I see them every day, sometimes nearly all day. That accounts for it. Again, he paused. It's my fault, Agatha. I shouldn't have left you to them. I knew. What did you know? Well, the state he was in and the effect it would have on you, that it would have on anyone. It's alright, he's going. Besides, he isn't in a state anymore. He's cured. Cured. What's cured him? She evaded him. He's been well ever since he came. Absolutely well after the first day. Still, you've been frightened. You've been worrying. You've had some shocker other or some strain. What is it? Nothing. Only just the last week I'd been a little frightened about you when you wouldn't write to me. Why didn't you? Because I couldn't. Then you were ill. I'm all right. I know what's the matter with me. It's Bella.

1:28:51He laughed harshly. No, it isn't this time. I haven't that excuse. Excuse for what? For coming. Bella's all right. Bella's a perfect angel. God knows what's happened to her. I don't. I haven't had anything to do with it. You had. You had everything. You were an angel, too. I haven't been much of an angel lately. I can tell you. She'll understand. She does understand. They had sat down on the couch in the corner so that they faced each other. Agatha faced him, but fear was in her eyes. It doesn't matter, he said, whether she understands or not. I don't want to talk about her. Agatha said nothing, but there was a movement in her face, a white wave of trouble, and the fear fluttered in her eyes. He saw it there. You needn't bother about Bella. She's all right. You see, it's not as if she cared. Care. About me much. But she does. She does care. I suppose she did once, or she couldn't have married me, but she doesn't now.

1:29:55You see, you may as well know at Agatha. There's another man. Oh, Rodney. Rodney, no. Yes, it's been perfectly all right, you know. But there he is, and there he's been for years. She told me, I'm awfully sorry for her. He posed. What beats me is her being so angelic now when she doesn't care. Rodney, she does. It's all over like an illness that you she cares for now. Think so. I'm sure of it. I'm not. You will be. You'll see it. You'll see it soon. Glanced at her under his bent brows, I don't know, he said, that I want to see it. That isn't what's the matter with me. You don't understand the situation. It isn't all over. She's only being good about it. She doesn't care a wrap about me. She can't. And what's more, I don't want her to. You don't want her to. You burst out. My God, I want nothing in this world but you. And I can't have you. That's what's the matter with me.

1:30:56No, no, it isn't she cried. You don't know. I do know. It's hurting me. And he looked at her and his voice shook. It's hurting you. I won't have you hurt. He started forward suddenly as if he would have taken her in his arms. She put her her hands to keep him off. No, no, she cried. I'm all right. I'm all right. It isn't that. You mustn't think it. I know it. That's why I came. He came near again. He seized her struggling hands. Agatha, why can't we? Why shouldn't we? No, no, she moaned. We can't. We mustn't. Not that way. I don't want it, Rodney, that way. It shall be any way you like. Only don't beat me off. I'm not beating you off. She stood up. Her face changed suddenly. Rodney, I forgot. They're coming. Who are they? The powels. They're coming to lunch. Can't you put them off? I can, but it wouldn't be very wise, dear.

1:31:57They might think, can't found them. They would think. He was pulling himself visibly together. I'm afraid, Aggie. I ought. I know you must. You must go soon. He looked at his watch. I must go now, dear. I guarantee it's dangerous. I know she whispered. But when is the brute going? Poor darling. He's going next week. Next Thursday. Well then, I'll. Please, you must go. I'm going. She held at her hand. I darn it touch you, he whispered. I'm going now. But I'll come again next Friday, and I'll stay. As she saw his drawn face, there was not any strength in her to say no. End of chapter 7. Recording by X Patriot in Bangor, Maine. Chapter 8 of the Floor in the Crystal by Mason Claire.

1:32:58This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by X Patriot in Bangor, Maine. Chapter 8. He had gone. She gathered herself together and went across the field to meet the pals as if nothing had happened. Millie and her husband were standing at the gate of the farm. They were watching. Yes, they were watching Rodney Lennon as he crossed the river by the farm bridge, which led up the hill by the field path that slanted to the farther and western end of the wood. Their attitudes show that they were interested in his brief appearance on the scene, and that they wondered what he- This is Matt Rogers from Los Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Los Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. You know when people try on new food, and suddenly it's like, wait. That's the reaction. A lot of people are having when they first try Cupid Mayo. It's the one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle. You've probably seen it in the grocery store before. And if you've ever just walked past it, some people would say that's a huge mistake.

1:34:01Because this mayo is different. Most mayonnaise uses whole eggs. Cupid only uses egg yolks, which gives it this rich umami flavor. It's smoother, deeper, and almost buttery. Once people try it, they start putting it on everything. Like sandwiches, fries, burgers, some fans even swear by dipping pizza crust in it. And once you notice it, you start seeing it everywhere. Chefs use it, restaurants use it. People who really care about flavor use it. Never try it. Grab the bottle with the red cap next time you're out of the store. Put it on just about anything. Then you'll understand. Cupid, the original Japanese mayonnaise. This is Ashley Akinetti from the almost famous podcast. You ever notice you and your spouse keep saying, we need to get away, but you never actually plan anything. That was us until we did something fun and spontaneous. We went to resort pass.com. There are hundreds of hotel resorts, pools and spots and private beaches that you can enjoy. You can spend the day at a luxury resort, pool, spa, massage without booking an overnight stay.

1:35:02And listen, I may have only been like 15 minutes from home, but it felt like it was a whole different world. And I'm thinking, this is exactly what I needed. So just go to resort pass.com, choose your resort, choose your day, luxury resort day passes start at just $25. Once you post your daycation, people are going to ask where you are. Go to resort pass.com slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get $20 off when you spend $100. That's code almost famous at resort pass.com slash almost famous. McDonald's is putting value back on the menu. Whether you're craving a Big Mac, McNuggets or sausage egg and cheese McGrittle's, make it a meal and save. Your favorite is now your wallet's favorite too. Extra value meals are back. Get a big something extra. With a Big Mac or 10 piece McNuggets, fries and a medium coke all for just $9. Limited time only, promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.

1:36:02Bada bada bada bada. You've been doing there. And as she approached them, she was aware of something cold, ominous and inimical that came from them and set towards her and passed by. For a sense of it only lasted for a second and was gone so completely that she could hardly realize that she had ever felt it. For they were charming to her, harding indeed was more perfect in his beautiful quality than ever. There was something about him more over that she had not been prepared for, something strange and pathetic humble almost and appealing. She saw in his eyes his large dark wild animal eyes chiefly. But it was a look that claimed as much as it deprecated that assumed between them some unspoken communion and understanding. With all its pathos it was a look that frightened her. Neither he nor his wife said a word about Rodney Lanyon. She was not even sure now that they had recognized him. They stayed with her all that afternoon.

1:37:03For their time they said was getting short and when about six o'clock Millie got up to go she took Agatha aside and said that if Agatha didn't mind she would leave Harding with her for a little while. She knew he wanted to talk to her. Agatha proposed that they should walk up the hill through the wood. They went in a curious silence and constraint. And it was not until they had got into the wood and were shut up in it together that he spoke. I think my wife told you that I had something to say to you. Yes Harding she said what is it? Well it's this. First of all I want to thank you. I know what you're doing for me. I'm sorry I didn't want you to know. I thought Millie wasn't going to tell you. She didn't tell me. Agatha said nothing. She was bound to accept his statement. Of course he must have known that Millie had broken her word and he was trying to shield her. I mean he went on that whether she told me or not it's no matter I knew. You knew I knew that something was happening and I knew that it wasn't the place.

1:38:06Places never make any difference. I only go to him because Millie thinks they do. Besides if it came to that this place from my peculiar point of view mind you was simply beastly. I couldn't have stood another night of it. Well well the thing went and I got all right. And the queer part of it is that I felt as if you were in it somehow as if you'd done something. I have hoped you might say something but you never did. One ought not to speak about these things harding and I told you I didn't want you to know. I didn't know what you did. I don't know now though Millie tried to tell me but I felt you. I felt you all the time. It was not I you felt. I implore you not to think it was. Well what can I think? Think as I do think she stopped herself. She was aware of the futility of her charge to this man who denied who always had denied the supernatural. It isn't a question of thinking she said at last.

1:39:08A believing then. Are you going to tell me to believe? No. It isn't believing either. It's knowing. Either you know it or you don't know though you may come to know. But whatever you think you mustn't think it's me. I'd rather like to. Why shouldn't I? She turned on him her grave white face and he noticed a curious expression there as of incipient terror because you might do some great harm either to yourself or is delicate skeptical eyebrows question her or me. You he murmured gently pitifully almost. Yes me or even well one doesn't quite know where the harm might end. If I could only make you take another view I tried to make you to work it that way so that you might find the secret and do it for yourself. I can't do anything for myself but Agatha I'll take any view you like of it so long as you'll keep on at me. Of course I'll keep on. At that he stopped suddenly in his path and faced her.

1:40:11I say you know it isn't hurting you is it? She felt herself wince. Saying me how could it hurt me? Millie said it couldn't. Agatha sighed. She said to herself Millie. But only Millie had an interfered. Don't you think it's cold here in the woods she said? Cold? Yes let's go back. As they went Millie met them at the farm bridge. She wanted Agatha to come and stay for supper. She pressed she pleaded and Agatha who had never yet withstood Millie's pleading stayed. She was from that evening that she really dated it, the thing that came upon her. She was aware of the instinct she disobeyed an instinct that told her to go home. Otherwise she could not say that she had any sort of premonition. Separate with late in the long room with the yellow blinds where she had first found harding power. The blinds were down tonight and the lamp on the table burnt low. The oil had given out. The light in the room was still daylight and came level from the sunset leaking through

1:41:14the yellow blinds. It struck Agatha that it was the same light, the same ocherish light that they had found in the room six weeks ago. But that was nothing. What it was she did not know. The horrible light went when the flame of the lamp burnt clearer. Arding was talking to her cheerfully and Millie was smiling at them both. When half through the meal Agatha got up and declared that she must go. She was ill, she was tired. They must forgive her but she must go. A Powell's rose and stood by her close to her in their distress. Millie brought wine and put it to her lips, but she turned her head away and whispered, please let me go. Let me get away. Harding wanted to walk back with her, but she refused with a vehemence that deterred him. A very odd of her said Millie as they stood at the gate and watched her go. She was walking fast almost running with a furtive step as if something pursued her. Powell did not speak.

1:42:15He turned from his wife and went slowly back into the house. End of chapter 8. Recording by Expatriot in Bangor, Maine. Chapter 9 of the Floa in the Crystal by Mason Claire This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Expatriot in Bangor, Maine. Chapter 9 She knew now what had happened to her. She was afraid of Harding Powell and it was her fear that it cried to her to go to get away from him. The awful thing was that she knew she could not get away from him. She had only to close her eyes and she would find the visible image of him hanging before her on the wall of darkness. And tonight when she tried to cover it with Rodney's, it was no longer obliterated. Rodney's image had worn thin and Harding's showed through.

1:43:16She was more afraid of it than she had been of Harding, and more than anything she was afraid of being afraid. Harding was the object of a boundless and indestructible compassion, and her fear of him was hateful to her and unholy. She knew that it would be terrible to let it follow her into that darkness where she would presently go down with him alone. It would be alright, she said to herself, if only I didn't keep on singing him. But he, his visible image and her fear of it, persisted even while the interior darkness, the divine, beneficent darkness rose around her. Wave on wave and flooded her. Even while she held him there and healed him. And while it still seemed to her that her love pierced through her fear and gathered to her spirit to spirit flame to pure flame the nameless, innermost essence of Rodney and Abela. She had known in the beginning that it was by love that she held them. But now, though she loved Rodney and had almost lost her pity for Harding and her fear

1:44:17of him, it was Harding rather than Rodney that she held. In the morning she woke with a sense which was almost a memory of Harding having been in the room with her all night. She was tired as if she had had some long and unrestrained communion with him. She put away at once the fatigue that pressed on her, the gift still worked in a flash for the facing a bodily sensation. She told herself that after all her fear had done no harm. Sell them in her experience of the power had she had so tremendous a sense of having got through to it, of having worked it, of having held Harding under it and healed him. For when all was said and done whether she had been afraid of him or not she had held him she had never once let go. The proof was that he still went sane, visibly, indubitably cured. All the same she felt that she could not go through another day like yesterday. She could not see him. She wrote a letter to Millie. Once it concerned Millie so profoundly it was well that Millie should be made to understand.

1:45:22She hoped that Millie would forgive her if they did not see her for the next day or two. If she was to go on she underlined it. She must be left absolutely alone. It seemed unkind when they were going so soon but Millie knew it was impossible to exaggerate the importance of what she had to do. Millie wrote back that of course she understood. She should be as Agatha wished. Only so Millie sustained her, Agatha must not allow herself to doubt the power. How could she when she saw what it had done for Harding? If she doubted what could she expect of Harding? But of course she must take care of her own dear self. If she failed, if she gave way what on earth would the poor darling do now that he had become dependent on her. She wrote as if it was Agatha's fault that he had become dependent, as if Agatha had nothing had nobody in the world to think of but Harding, as if nobody, as if nothing in the world beside Harding mattered.

1:46:23And Agatha found herself resenting Millie's view, as if to her anything in the world mattered beside Rodney Lanyon. For three days she did not see the powels. End of chapter 9. This is Matt Rodgers from Lost Cultures. This is Matt Rodgers in Bowen Yang. A lot of people are having when they first try Cupid Mayo. It's the one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle. You probably seen it in the grocery store before. And if you've ever just walked past it, some people would say that's a huge mistake.

1:47:25Because this mayo is different. Lost mayonnaise uses whole eggs. Cupid only uses egg yolks, which gives it this rich umami flavor. It's smoother, deeper, and almost buttery. Once people try it, they start putting it on everything. Egg sandwiches, fries, burgers, some fans even swear by dipping pizza crust in it. And once you notice it, you start seeing it everywhere. Chefs use it, restaurants use it. People who really care about flavor use it. Never try it, grab the bottle with the red cap next time you're at the store. Put it on just about anything. Then you'll understand. Cupid, the original Japanese mayonnaise. This is Ashley Akinetti from the almost famous podcast. You ever notice you and your spouse keep saying we need to get away, but you never actually plan anything. That was us until we did something fun and spontaneous. We went to resort pass.com. There are hundreds of hotel resorts, pools and spots and private beaches that you can enjoy. You can spend the day at a luxury resort, pool, spa, massage without booking an overnight stay.

1:48:26And I may have only been like 15 minutes from home, but it felt like it was a whole different world. And I'm thinking this is exactly what I needed. So just go to resort pass.com, choose your resort, choose your day, luxury resort day passes start at just $1,000. Once you post your daycation, people are going to ask where you are. Go to resort pass.com slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get $20 off when you spend $100. This code almost famous at resort pass.com slash almost famous. It's Paul in America. Make it count at the Ram Drive-In to Fall Sales event. Make it powerful with our strongest Ram 1500 ever. Make it move with the Ram Heavy Duty with an available Cummins diesel and make it go to the distance with a 10 year or 100,000 mile powertrain limited warranty. Hurry in now for great deals during the Ram Drive-In to Fall sales event. Excludes fully electric vehicles applied to 2026 model year vehicles non transferable visit at www.remampart.com for complete details and a copy of the powertrain limited warranty. Comment as a registered trademark of Cummins ain't Ram and Hammy are registered trademarks

1:49:27of FCA US LLC. The three nights passed as before but with an increasing struggle and fear. She knew, she knew what was happening. It was as if the walls of personality were wearing thin and through them she felt him trying to get at her. She put the thought from her. It was absurd. It was insane. Such things could not be. It was not in any region of such happenings that she held him but in the place of peace, the charmed circle, the flawless crystal sphere. Still the thought persisted. And still in spite of it she held him, she would not let him go. By her honor and by her love for Millie she was bound to hold him, even though she knew how terribly how implacably he prevailed. She was aware now that the persistence of his image on the blackness was only assigned to her of his being there and his substance, in his supreme innermost essence. It had obviously no relation to his bodily appearance since she had not seen him for three

1:50:29days. It tended more and more to vanish, to give place to the shapeless, nameless, all-pervading presence. And her fear of him became pervading, nameless and shapeless too. Somehow it was always behind her now. It followed her from room to room of her house, it drove her out of doors. It seemed to her that she went before it with quick, uncertain feet, and a fluttering heart, aimless and tormented, as a leaf driven by a vague light wind. Sometimes it sent her up the field towards the wood. Sometimes it would compel her to go a little way towards the farm. And then it was as if it took her by the shoulders and turned her back again towards her house. On the fourth day which was Tuesday of the powles last week, she determined to fight this fear. She could not defy it to the extent of going on to the farm where she might see harding, but certainly she would not suffer it to turn her from her hilltop. It was there that she had always gone as the night fell, calling home her thoughts to sleep.

1:51:33And it was there seven weeks ago that the moon, the golden white and holy moon, had led her to the consecration of her gift. She had returned softly seven weeks ago, carrying carefully her gift as a fragile, flawless crystal. Since then how recklessly she had held it, to what jars and risks she had exposed the exquisite and sacred thing. She waited for her hour between sunset and twilight. It was perfect following a perfect day. Above the wood the sky had a violet lucidity purer than the day. Below it the pale brown earth wore a violet haze, and over that a web of green woven of the sparse thin blades of the young wheat. There were two ways up the hill, one over her own bridge across the river, the led her to the steep straight path through the wood. One over the farm bridge by the slanting path up the field. She chose the wood.

1:52:33She paused on the bridge and looked down the valley. She saw the farmhouse standing in the stillness that was its own secret and the hours. A strange pale lamp light lit too soon showed in the windows of the room she knew. The powels would be sitting there at their supper. She went on and came to the gate of the wood. It swung open on its hinges, assigned to her that sometime or other harding powel had passed there. She paused and looked about her. Presently she saw a harding powel coming down the wood path. He stopped. It not yet seen her. He was looking up to the arch of the beach trees where the green light still came through. She could see by his attitude a quiet contemplation the sane and happy creature that he was. He was sane, she knew. And yet no, she could not really see him as sane. It was her sanity not his own that he walked in. Or else what she saw was the empty shell of him. He was in her.

1:53:33Either too it had been in the darkness that she had felt him most, and her fear of him had been chiefly fear of the invisible harding, and of what he might do there in the darkness. Now her fear, which had become almost hatred, was transferred to his person. In the flesh as in the spirit he was pursuing her. He had seen her now. He was making straight for her, and she turned and ran round the eastern bend of the hill, a yard or so to the left of her, and hid from him. From where she crouched at the edge of the wood, she saw him descend the lower slope to the river. By standing up and advancing a little, she could see him follow the river path on the nearer side, and crossed by the farm bridge. She was sure of all that. She was sure that it did not take her more than twelve or fifteen minutes, for she had gone that way a hundred times to get back to the gate to walk up the little wood, to cut through it by a track in the undergrowth, and turn round the further and western end of it.

1:54:34Thence she could either take the long path that slanted across the field to the farm bridge, or keep to the upper ground along a trail in the grass scurrying the wood, and so reach home by the short straight path in her own bridge. She decided on the short straight path as leading her farther from the farmhouse, where there could be no doubt that harding Powell was now. At the point she had reached the jutting corner of the wood, hid from her, the downward slope of the hill, and the flat land at its foot. As she turned the corner of the wood, she was brought suddenly inside of the valley. A hot wave swept over her brain, so strong that she staggered as it passed. It was followed by a strange sensation of physical sickness that- This is Matt Rogers from Los Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Los Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. We know when people try a new food and suddenly it's like, wait. That's the reaction. A lot of people are having when they first try Cupid Mayo.

1:55:35It's the one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle. You've probably seen it in the grocery store before. And if you've ever just walked past it, some people would say that's a huge mistake. Because this mayo is different. Most mayonnaise uses whole eggs. Cupid only uses egg yolks, which gives it this rich umami flavor. It's smoother, deeper, and almost buttery. As people try it, they start putting it on everything. Egg sandwiches, fries, burgers, some fans even swear by dipping pizza crust in it. And once you notice it, you start seeing it everywhere. Chefs use it, restaurants use it. People who really care about flavor use it. Never try it, grab the bottle with the red cap next time you're at the store. Put it on just about anything. Then you'll understand. Cupid, the original Japanese mayonnaise. This is Ashley Akinetti from the Almost Amused Podcast. You ever notice you and your spouse keep saying, we need to get away. You never actually plan anything. That was us until we did something fun and spontaneous. We went to resortpass.com. There are hundreds of hotel resorts, pools and spots and private beaches that you can enjoy.

1:56:38You can spend the day at a luxury resort, pool, spa, massage, without booking an overnight stay. And listen, I may have only been like 15 minutes from home, but it felt like it was a whole different world. And I'm thinking, this is exactly what I needed. So just go to resortpass.com, choose your resort, choose your day, luxury, resort, day passes, start at just $25. Once you post your daycation, people are going to ask where you are. Go to resortpass.com slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get $20 off when you spend $100. That's code almost famous at resortpass.com slash almost famous. Toyota's easy choice sales event is on. Whether you're looking for the performance of a camera, the versatility of her at 4, the efficiency of a Corolla or all electric driving in the BZ. There's a Toyota that's just right for you. And with great deals across the lineup, now's the time to find yours. But hurry, these deals won't last long.

1:57:40Toyota's easy choice sales event ends soon. We make it easy. Toyota, let's go places. It was then as if what went through her had charged her nerves of sight to a pitch of insane and horrible sensibility. The green of the grass end of the young corn, the very color of life was violent and frightful. Not only was it abominable in itself, it was a thing to be shuttered at because of some still more abominable significance it had. Agatha had known once, standing where she stood now, an exaltation of sense that was ecstasy. When every leaf and every blade of grass shone with a divine translucent, when every nerve in her thrilled, and her whole being rang with the joy which is imminent in the life of things. What she experienced now, if she could have given any account of it, was exaltation at the other end of the scale. She was horror and fear unspeakable, horror and fear imminent in the life of things.

1:58:46She saw the world in a loathsome transparency. She saw it with the eye of a soul in which no sense of the divine had ever been, of a soul that denied the supernatural. It had been harding Powell's soul, and it had become hers. Furiously, implacably, he was getting at her. Out of the wood in the hedges that bordered it, there came sounds that were horrible, because she knew them to be inaudible to any ear less charged with insanity. Small sounds of movement, of strange shivering, swarming, crepitations, sounds of incessant infinitely subtle urging of agony and recoil. Sounds they were of the invisible things unborn, driven towards birth. Things of the worm unborn, of things that creep and writhe towards dissolution. She knew what she heard and saw. She heard the stirring of the corruption that life was. The young blades of corn were frightful to her. Her in them was the push, the passion of the evil which was life.

1:59:49The trees, as they stretched out their arms and threatened her, were frightful with the terror which was life. On there, in that gross green hotbed, the earth teemed with the abomination, and the river livid white, a monstrous thing crawled, dragging with it the very slime. All this she perceived in a flash when she had turned the corner. It sank into stillness and grew dim. She was aware of it only as the scene, the region in which one thing, her terror, moved and hunted her. Things sounds of the rustling of leaves in the soft crush of grass, and the worrying of little wings and fright she heard it go. It went on the other side of the hedge, a little way behind her as she scourred the wood. She stood still to let it pass her and she felt that it passed, and that it stopped and waited. A terrified bird flew out of the hedge, no further than a fledgling's flight in front of her. And in that place, at flew from, she saw harding powel.

2:00:51She was crouching under the hedge as she had crouched when she had hidden from him. His face was horrible, but not more horrible than the terror that had gone behind her. And she heard herself crying out to him, harding, harding, appealing to him against the implacable unseen pursuer. He had risen, she saw him rise, but as she called his name he became insubstantial, and she saw a thing, a nameless, unnamable, shapeless thing proceeding from him. A brown blurred thing, transparent as dusk, is that drifted on the air. It was torn and tormented, a fragment parted and flung off from some immense and as yet invisible cloud of horror. It drifted from her, it dissolved like smoke on the hillside, and the thing that had born and begotten it pursued her. She bowed under it, and turned from the edge of the wood, the horrible place it had been born in. She ran before a headlong down the field, trampling the young corn under her feet.

2:01:51As she ran she heard a voice in the valley, a voice of amazement and in treaty calling to her in a sort of song, what are you running for Aggy? Aggy? It was Millie's voice that called. Then as she came still headlong to the river, she heard harding's voice saying something, she did not know what. She couldn't stop to listen to him, or to consider how he came to be there in the valley when a minute ago she had seen him by the edge of the wood up on the very top of the hill. He was on the bridge, the farm bridge now. He held out his hand to steady her as she came on over the swinging plank. She knew that he had led her to the other side and that he was standing there, still saying something, and that she answered, have you no pity on me? Can't you let me go? And then she broke from him and ran. End of chapter 10, Recording by X Patriot in Bangor, Maine

2:02:56Chapter 11 of the Flo in the Crystal by Mason Clare This Librivat recording is in the public domain, Recording by X Patriot in Bangor, Maine. Chapter 11 She was awake all that night. Recording Powell and the horror begotten of him had no pity, he would not let her go. Her gift, her secret was powerless now against the pursuer. She had a light burning in her room till morning for she was afraid of sleep. Those unlit roads down which if she slept, the thing would surely hunt her, were ten times more terrible than the white-washed familiar room where it merely watched and waited. In the morning she found a letter on her breakfast table. This is Matt Rodgers from Lost Culture East, with Matt Rodgers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Lost Culture East, with Matt Rodgers and Bowen Yang. You know when people try a new food and suddenly it's like, wait, that's the reaction. A lot of people are having when they first try Cupid Mayo. It's the one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle, you probably seen it in

2:03:58the grocery store before. And if you've ever just walked past it, some people would say that's a huge mistake. Because this mayo is different. Most mayonnaise uses whole eggs. Cupid only uses egg yolks, which gives it this rich umami flavor. It's smoother, deeper, and almost buttery. Once people try it, they start putting it on everything. Egg sandwiches, fries, burgers, some fans even swear by dipping pizza crust in it. And once you notice it, you start seeing it everywhere. Chefs use it, restaurants use it. People who really care about flavor use it. Never try it, grab the bottle with the red cap next time you're at the store. Put it on just about anything. Then you'll understand. Cupid, the original Japanese mayonnaise. This is Ashley Akinetti from the almost famous podcast. You ever notice you and your spouse keep saying, we need to get away, but you never actually plan anything. That was us until we did something fun and spontaneous. We went to resort pass.com. There are hundreds of hotel resorts, pools and spots and private beaches that you can enjoy. You can spend the day at a luxury resort, pool, spa, massage without booking an overnight

2:05:04stay. And I may have only been like 15 minutes from home, but it felt like it was a whole different world. And I'm thinking, this is exactly what I needed. So just go to resort pass.com, choose your resort, choose your day, luxury resort day passes start at just $1,000. Once you post your daycation, people are going to ask where you are. Go to resort pass.com slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get $20 off when you spend $100. This code almost famous at resort pass.com slash almost famous. Toyota's easy choice sales event is on. Whether you're looking for the performance of a camera, the versatility of a RAV4, the efficiency of a Corolla or all electric driving in the BZ, there's a Toyota that's just right for you. And with great deals across the lineup, now's the time to find yours. But hurry, these deals won't last long. Toyota's easy choice sales event ends soon. We make it easy.

2:06:04Toyota, let's go places. Which the maid said Mrs. Powell had left late last evening after Agatha had gone to bed. Millie wrote, Dearest Agatha, of course I understand, but are we never going to see you again? What was the matter with you last night you terrified poor hearting? Yours ever, MP. Without knowing why, Agatha tore the letter into bits and burned them in the flame of a candle. She watched them burn. Of course she said to herself, that is insane of me. And when she had gone round her house and shut all the doors and locked them, and drawn down the blinds in every closed window, and found herself cowering over her fireless hearth, shuddering with fear, she knew that whether she were mad or not there was madness in her. She knew that her face in the glass she had the courage to look at it, was the face of an insane terror let loose. As she did know it, that there were moments flashes in which she could contemplate her

2:07:06state and recognize it for what it was, showed that there was still a trace of sanity in her. It was not her own madness that possessed her. It was, or rather it had been, harding Powell's. She had taken it from him. That was what it meant to take away madness. It could be no doubt as to what had happened, nor as to the way of its happening. The danger of it, utterly unforeseen, was part of the very operation of the gift. In the process of getting at harding to heal him, she had had to destroy not only the barriers of flesh and blood, but those innermost walls of personality that divide and protect, mercifully, one spirit from another. With the first thinning of the walls, harding's insanity had leaked through to her. With the first breach it had broken in. It had been transferred to her complete, with all its details, with its very gestures, in all the phases that it ran through. Harding's promonatory fears and trembling, harding's exalted sensibility, harding's

2:08:10abominable vision of the world, that vision from which the resplendent divinity had perished, harding's flight before the pursuing terror. She was sitting now as harding had sat, when she found him crouching over the hearth in that horrible room of the drawn blinds. It seemed to her that to have a madness of your own would not be so very horrible. It would be, after all, your own. It could not possibly be one half-so-horrible as this, to have somebody else's madness put into you. The one thing by which she knew herself was the desire that no longer ran underground, who had emerged and appeared before her, lit by her lucid flashes naked and unashamed. She still knew her own, and there was something in her still that was greater than the thing that inhabited her, the pursuer, the pursued, who had rushed into her as his refuge, his sanctuary, and that was her fear of him, and of what he might do there. If her doors stood open to him, they stood open to Bella and to Rodney Lanyon, too.

2:09:16What else had she been trying for if it were not to break down in all three of them the barriers of flesh and blood and to transmit the power? In the unthinkable sacrament to which she called them, they had all three partaken. And since the holy thing could suffer her to be thus permeated, saturated with harding powel, was it to be supposed that she could keep him to herself that she would not pass him on to Rodney Lanyon? It was not after all incredible. If he could get at her, of course he could get through her at Rodney. That was the terror of terrors, and it was her own, that it could subsist together with that alien horror that it remains supreme beside it proved that there was still some tracked in her where the invader had not yet penetrated. In her love for Rodney and her fear for him, she entrenched herself against the destroyer. There at least she knew herself impregnable. It was in such a luminous flash that she saw the thing still in her own hands and resolved

2:10:18that it should cease. She would have to break her word to Millie. She would have to let harding go to loosen deliberately his hold on her and cut him off. It could be done. She had held him through her gift and it would be still possible through the gift to let him go. Of course she knew it would be hard. It was hard. It was terrible for he clung. She had not counted on his clinging. It was as if in their undivided substance he had had knowledge of her purpose and had prepared himself to fight it. He hung on desperately. He refused to yield an inch of the ground he had taken from her. He was no longer a passive thing in that world where she had brought him, and he had certain advantages. He had possessed her for three nights and for three days. He had made herself pour us to him, and her sleep had always been his opportunity. It took her three nights and three days to cast him out. In the first night she struggled with him.

2:11:19She lay with all her senses hushed and brought the divine darkness around her, but in the darkness she was aware that she struggled. She could build up the walls between them, but she knew that as fast as she built them he tore at them and pulled them down. She bore herself humbly towards the power that permitted him. She conceived of it as holiness estranged and offended. She pleaded with it. She could no longer trust her knowledge of its working, but she tried to come to terms with it. She offered herself as a propitiation, as a substitute for Rodney Lennon, if there was no other way by which he might be saved. Apparently that was not the way it worked. Harding seemed to gain, but as he kept her awake all night he had no chance to establish himself as he would otherwise have done in her sleep. The odds between her and her adversary were even. The second night she gained. She felt that she had built up her walls again that she had cut harding off, with spiritual pain with the tearing of the bonds of compassion, with the supreme agony of rupture he parted

2:12:23from her. Possibly the power was neutral, for in the dawn after the second night she slept. That sleep left her uncertain of the event. There was no telling into what unguarded doubts it might have carried her. She knew that she had been free of her adversary before she slept, but the chances were that he had got at her in her sleep. Since the power held the balance even between her and the invader, it would no doubt permit him to enter by any loophole that he could seize. On the third night, as it were in the last watch, she surrendered, but not to harding powel. She could not say how it came to her. She was lying in her bed with her eyes shut and her arms held apart from her body, diminishing all contacts, stripping for her long slide into the cleansing darkness, when she found herself recalling some forgotten yet inalienable knowledge that she had. Something said to her, Do you not remember? There is no striving and no crying in the world which you would enter.

2:13:26There is no more appeasing where peace is. You cannot make your own terms with the high and holy power. It is not enough to give yourself a Rodney Lanyon, where he is more to you than you are yourself. Besides, any substitution of self for self would be useless, where there is no more self there. That is why the power cannot work that way. But if it should require you here on this side the threshold to give him up, to give up your desire of him, what then would you lose your hold on him and let him go? Would you, the voice insisted? He heard herself answer from the pure threshold of the darkness I would. Sleep came on her there, a divine sleep from beyond the threshold, sacred in violet sleep. It was the seal upon the bond. End of chapter 11. Recording by Expatriot in Bangor, Maine.

2:14:29Chapter 12. She woke on Friday morning to a vivid and indestructible certainty of escape. But there had been a condition attached to her deliverance, and it was born in on her that instead of waiting for the power to force its terms on her, she would do well to be beforehand with it. Friday was Rodney's day, and this time she knew that he would come. His coming of course was nothing, but he had told her plainly that he would not go. She must therefore wire to him not to come. In order to do this she had to get up early and walk about a mile to the nearest village. She took this shortest way which was by the farm bridge and up the slanting path to the far end of the wood. She knew vaguely that once as she had turned the corner of the wood there had been horrors, and that the divine beauty of green pastures and still waters had appeared to her as a valley

2:15:33of the shadow of evil, but she had no more memory of what she had seen than of a foul dream three nights dead. She went at first uplifted in the joy of her deliverance, drawing into her the light and fragrance of the young morning. Then she remembered harding powel. She had noticed that she passed the farmhouse that the blinds were drawn again in all the windows. That was because harding and milley were gone. She thought of harding of milley with an immense tenderness and compassion but also with lucidity with sanity. They had gone yesterday and she had not seen them. That could not be helped. She had done all that was possible. She could not have seen them as long as the least taint of harding's melody remained with her. And how could she have faced milley after having broken her word to her? Not that she regretted even that the breaking of her word so sane was she. She could conceive that if it had not been for Rodney Lanyon she might have had the courage to have gone on.

2:16:34She might have considered that she was bound to save harding even at the price of her own sanity since there was her word to milley. But it might be questioned whether by holding onto him she would have kept it, whether she really could have saved him that way. She was no more than a vehicle, a crystal vessel for the inscrutable and secret power, and in destroying her utterly harding would have destroyed himself. You could not transmit the power through a broken crystal. Why not even through one that had a flaw? There had been a flaw somewhere so much was certain, and as she searched now for the flaw with her luminous sanity she found it in her fear. She knew she had always known the danger of taking fear and the thought of fear with her into that world where to think was to will and to will was to create. But for the rest she had tried to make herself clear as crystal, and what could she do more than give up Rodney? As she set her face towards the village she was sustained by a sacred order, a sacrificial

2:17:37exaltation. But as she turned homeroids across the solitary fields she realized the sadness, the desolation of the things she had accomplished, he would not come. Her message would reach him too. This is Matt Rodgers from Los Cultures, that's with Matt Rodgers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Los Cultures, that's Matt Rodgers and Bowen Yang. You know when people try a new food and suddenly it's like, wait. That's the reaction. A lot of people are having when they first try QB Mayo. It's the one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle. You've probably seen it in the grocery store before. And if you've ever just walked past it some people would say that's a huge mistake. Because this mayo is different. Most mayonnaise uses whole eggs. QB only uses egg yolks, which gives it this rich umami flavor. It's smoother, deeper, and almost buttery. Once people try it they start putting it on everything. Egg sandwiches, fries, burgers, some fans even swear by dipping pizza crust in it. And once you notice it you start seeing it everywhere. Chefs use it, restaurants use it.

2:18:37People who really care about flavor use it. You never try it, grab the bottle with the red cap next time you're at the store. Put it on just about anything then you'll understand. QB, the original Japanese mayonnaise. This is Ashley Akinetti from the almost famous podcast. You ever notice you and your spouse keep saying, we need to get away but you never actually plan anything. That was us until we did something fun and spontaneous. We went to resortpass.com. There are hundreds of hotel resorts, pools and spots and private beaches that you can enjoy. You can spend the day at a luxury resort, pool, spa, massage without booking an overnight stay. And listen, I may have only been like 15 minutes from home but it felt like it was a whole different world. And I'm thinking this is exactly what I needed. So just go to resortpass.com, choose your resort, choose your day, luxury resort day passes start at just $1,000. Once you post your daycation, people are going to ask where you are. Go to resortpass.com slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get

2:19:41$20 off when you spend $100. That's code almost famous at resortpass.com slash almost famous. McDonald's is putting value back on the menu. Whether you're craving a big mac, McNuggets or sausage egg and cheese, McGrittle's, make it a meal and save. Your favorite is now your wallet's favorite too. Extra value meals are back. Get a big something extra. With a big mac or 10 piece McNuggets, fries and a medium coke all for just $9. Limited time only, promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing. Bada bada bada. Flowers before the starting of the train he always came by. Across the village she saw her White House shining and the windows of his room, her study which was always his room when he came, its lattices were flung open as if it welcomed him. Something had happened there. Her maid was standing by the garden gate looking for her. As she approached the girl came over the field to meet her.

2:20:42She had an air of warning her of preparing her for something. It was Mrs. Powell the maid said. She had come again. She was in there waiting for Miss Agatha. She wouldn't go away. She had gone straight in. She was in an awful state. The maid thought it was something to do with Mr. Powell. They had not gone then. If I were you missed the maid was saying I wouldn't see her. Of course I shall see her. She went at once into the room where Rodney might have been, where Millie was. Millie rose from the corner where she sat averted. Agatha she said. I had to come. Agatha kissed the white, suppleant face that Millie lifted. I thought she said you'd gone yesterday. We couldn't go. He's ill again. Ill. Yes. Didn't you see the blinds down as you passed? I thought it was because you'd gone. It's because that things come back again. When did it come, Millie? It's been coming for three days.

2:21:43Agatha drew in her breath with a pang. It was just three days since she began to let him go. Millie went on and now he won't come out of the house. He says he's being hunted. He's afraid of being seen, being found. He's in there in that room. He made me lock him in. They stared at each other and at the horror that their faces took and gave back each to each. Oh, Aggie, Millie cried it out in her anguish. You will help him. I can't. Agatha heard her voice go dry in her throat. You can't. Agatha shook her head. You mean you haven't then? I haven't. I couldn't. But you told me. You told me you were giving yourself up to it. He said that was why you couldn't see us. It was why. Do sit down, Millie. They sat down still staring at each other. Agatha faced the window so that the light ravaged her. Millie went on. That was why I left you alone. I thought you were going on.

2:22:44You said you wouldn't let him go. You promised me you'd keep on. I did keep on till Millie had only paused to hold down a sob. Her voice broke out again, clear, harsh, accusing. What were you doing all that time? Of course, Sit Agatha. You're bound to think I'd let you down. What am I to think? Millie, I asked you not to think it was me. Of course I knew it was the power not you, but you had hold of it. You did something. Something that other people can't do. You did it for one night and that night he was well. You kept on for six weeks and he was well all that time. You leave off for three days. I know when you left off and he's ill again. And then you tell me that it isn't you. It is you. And if it's you, you can't give him up. You can't stand by Aggy and refuse to help him. You know what it was. How can you bear to let him suffer? How can you? I can because I must. And why must you?

2:23:44Millie raised her head more in defiance than in supplication. Because I told you that I might give out. Well I have given out. You told me that the power can't give out, that you've only got to hold on to it, that it's no effort. I'm only asking you Aggy to hold on. You don't know what you're asking. I'm asking you only to do what you have done to give five minutes in the day to him. You said it was enough, only five minutes. It isn't much to ask. Agatha sighed. What difference could it make to you, five minutes? You don't understand said Agatha. I do. I don't ask you to see him or to bother with him, only to go on as you were doing. You don't understand. It isn't possible to explain it. I can't go on. I see. You're tired Aggy. Well, not now, not today, but later when you're rested, won't you? Oh, Millie. Dear Millie, if I could, you can, you will.

2:24:44I know you will. No, you must understand it never again, never again, never, never. There was a long silence. At last Millie's voice crept through, strained and thin, feebly argumentative, the voice of a thing defeated and yet unconvinced. I don't understand you, Agatha. You say it isn't you. You say you're only a connecting link that you do nothing, that the power that does it is inexhaustible, that there's nothing it can't do, nothing that it won't do for us, and yet you go and cut yourself off from it deliberately, from the thing you believe to be divine. I haven't cut myself off from it. You've cut harding off, said Millie. If you refused to hold him, that wouldn't cut him off from it, but Millie, holding him was bad. It wasn't safe. It saved him. All the same Millie, it wasn't safe. The thing itself isn't. The power, the divine thing.

2:25:46Yes, it's divine, and it's terrible. It does terrible things to us. How could it? If it's divine, wouldn't it be compassionate? Do you suppose it's less compassionate than you are? Why Agatha, when it's goodness and purity itself? Goodness and purity are terrible. We don't understand it. It's got its own laws. What you call prayer is all right. It would be safe, I mean. I suppose it might get answered anyway, however we fell short. But this, this is different. It's the highest Millie. And if you rush in and make for the highest, can't you see? Oh, can't you see how it might break you? Can't you see what it requires of you? Absolute purity. I told you Millie. You have to be crystal to it, crystal without a flaw. And if there were a flaw, the whole thing, don't you see, would break down. It would be no good. In fact, it would be awfully dangerous to whom? To you, to them, the people you're helping.

2:26:47You make a connection. You smash down all the walls so that you, you get through to each other. And supposing there was something wrong with you, and it doesn't work any longer, the power, I mean, don't you see that you might do harm where you were trying to help? But Agatha, there was nothing wrong with you. How do I know? Can anybody be sure there's nothing wrong with them? You think, said Millie, there was a flaw somewhere. There must have been somewhere. What was it? Can't you find out? Can't you think? Think. Sometimes I have thought it may have been my fear. Fear? Yes, it's the worst thing. Don't you remember? I told you not to be afraid. But Agatha, you were not afraid. I was, afterwards, I got frightened. You, and you told me not to be afraid, said Millie. I had to tell you. And I wasn't afraid, afterwards, I believed in you. He believed in you. You shouldn't have. You shouldn't. That was just it.

2:27:47That was it. I suppose you'll say next, it was I who frightened you. As they faced each other there, Agatha, with the terrible, the almost supernatural lucidity she had, saw what was making Millie say that. Millie had been frightened. She felt that she had probably communicated her fright. She knew that that was dangerous, and she knew that if it had done harm to harding, she and not Agatha would be responsible. And because she couldn't face her responsibility, she was trying to fasten upon Agatha some other fault than fear. No, Millie, I don't say you frightened me. It was my own fear. What was there for you to be afraid of? Agatha was silent. That was what she must never tell her, not even to make her understand. She did not know what Millie was trying to think of her. Millie might think what she liked, but she should never know what her terror had been and her danger. Agatha's silence helped Millie. Nothing will make me believe, she said, that it was your fear that did it. That would never have made you give harding up.

2:28:49Besides, you were not afraid at first, though you may have been afterwards. Afterwards, it was her own word, but it had as yet no significance for her. After whatever it was you gave him up for, you gave him up for something. I did not. I never gave him up until I was afraid. You gave it up. You wouldn't have done that if there had not been something, something that stood between. If, said Agatha, you could only tell me what it was. I can't tell you. I don't know what came to you. I only know that if I had had a gift like that, I would not have given it up for anything. I wouldn't have let anything come between. I'd have kept myself. I did keep myself for it. I couldn't keep myself entirely for harding. There were other things, other people. I couldn't give them up for harding or for anybody. Are you quite sure you kept yourself what you were, Aggy? What was I? My dear, you were absolutely pure.

2:29:50You said that was the condition. Yes? And don't you see who is absolutely? If you thought I was, you didn't know me. As she spoke, she heard the sharp click of the latch as the garden gate fell, too. She had her back to the window so that she saw nothing, but she heard footsteps that she knew, resolute and energetic footsteps that hurried to their end. She felt the red blood surge into her face, and saw that Millie's face was white with another passion, and that Millie's eyes were fixed on the figure of the man who came up the garden path. And without looking at her, Millie answered, I don't know now, but I think I see my dear, in Millie's paws the doorbell rang violently. Millie rose and let her have it. What was the flaw in the crystal? End of chapter 12, recording by ex-patriot in Bangor, Maine.

2:30:52Chapter 13 of the flaw in the crystal by Mace and Claire. This leave-revanched recording is in the public domain, recording by ex-patriot in Bangor, Maine. Chapter 13. Rodney entered the room, and it was then that Millie looked at her. Millie's face was no longer the face of passion, but of sadness and reproach, almost of recovered incredulity. With question rather than accused her, it said unmistakably, you gave him up for that? Agatha's voice recalled her, Millie, I think you know Mr. Lanyon. Rodney, in acknowledging Millie's presence, did not look at her. He saw nothing there, but Agatha's face, which showed him at last the expression that to his eyes had always been latent in it. The look of the tragic hidden soul of terror that he had divine in her. He saw her at last as he had known he should someday see her. Terror was no longer there, but it had possessed her. It had passed through her and destroyed that other look she had from her lifted mouth

2:31:56and hair. The look of a thing born on wing. This is Matt Rodgers from Los Culturistas with Matt Rodgers in Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Los Culturistas with Matt Rodgers in Bowen Yang. You know when people try out new food and suddenly it's like, wait. That's the reaction. A lot of people are having when they first try Cupid Mayo. It's the one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle. You've probably seen it in the grocery store before. And if you've ever just walked past it, some people would say that's a huge mistake. Because this mayo is different. Most mayonnaise uses whole eggs. Cupid only uses egg yolks, which gives it this rich umami flavor. It's smoother, deeper, and almost buttery. Once people try it, they start putting it on everything. Egg sandwiches, fries, burgers, some fans even swear by dipping pizza crust in it. And once you notice it, you start seeing it everywhere. Chefs use it, restaurants use it. People who really care about flavor use it. Never try it, grab the bottle with the red cap next time you're at the store. Put it on just about anything, then you'll understand. Cupid, the original Japanese mayonnaise.

2:32:58This is Ashley Akinetti from the almost famous podcast. You ever notice you and your spouse keep saying, we need to get away, but you never actually plan anything. That was us until we did something fun and spontaneous. We went to resort pass.com. There are hundreds of hotel resorts, pools and spots and private beaches that you can enjoy. You can spend the day at a luxury resort, pool, spa, massage without booking an overnight stay. And listen, I may have only been like 15 minutes from home, but it felt like it was a whole different world. And I'm thinking, this is exactly what I needed. So just go to resort pass.com, choose your resort, choose your day, luxury, resort, day passes, start at just $1,500. Once you post your daycation, people are going to ask where you are. Go to resort pass.com slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get $20 off when you spend $100. That's code almost famous at resort pass.com slash almost famous.

2:33:59At QVC, fall shopping is more than just checking out. It's discovering the brands you love across beauty, fashion, home and culinary, all in one place. Whether you're getting ready for crisp mornings, cozy nights or everyday moments, QVC has what you need for the season ahead, with brands like Laura Geller, Philosophy, Ninja and so many more. Shop now at QVC.com. Now, with her wings beaten, with her white face in haggard eyes, he saw her as a flying thing, tracked down and trampled under the feet of the pursuer. He saw in one flash as he stood there holding Millie's hand. Millie's face had no significance for him. He didn't see it. When at last he looked at her, his eyes questioned her. They demanded an account from her of what he saw. For Agatha, Millie's face, prepared as it was for leave-taking, remained charged with meaning.

2:34:59It refused to divest itself of reproach and of the incredulity that challenged her. Agatha rose to it. You're not going, Millie, just because he's come. You needn't. Millie was going. He rose to it also. If Mrs. Powell would go like that in that distressing way, she must at least let him walk back with her. Agatha wouldn't mind. He hadn't seen Mrs. Powell for ages. He had risen to such a height that Millie was bewildered by him. She let him walk back with her to the farm in a little way beyond it. Agatha said goodbye to Millie at the garden gate and watched them go. Then she went up into her own room. He was gone so long that she thought he was never coming back again. She did not want him to come back just yet, but she knew that she was not afraid to see him. It did not occur to her to wonder why in spite of her message he had come, nor why he had come by an earlier train than usual. She suppose that he must have started before her message could have reached him.

2:36:01All that is coming or his not coming mattered so little now. For now the whole marvelous thing was clear to her. She knew the secret of the gift. She saw luminously almost transparently the way it worked. Millie had shown her. Millie knew. Millie had seen. She had put her finger on the floor. It was not fear. Millie had been right there too. Until the moment when harding Powell had begun to get at her, Agatha had never known what fear felt like. It was the strain of mortality in her love for Rodney. The hidden thing, unforeseen and unacknowledged, working its work in the darkness. It had been there all the time, undermining her secret sacred places. It had made the first breach through which the fear that was not her fear had entered. She could tell the very moment when it happened. She had blamed poor little Millie, but it was the floor, the floor that had given their deadly point to Millie's interference and harding's opportunity.

2:37:03But for the floor they could not have penetrated her profound serenity. Her gift might have been trusted to dispose of them. For before that moment the gift had worked indubitably. It had never missed once. She looked back on its wonders on the healing of herself, the first healing of Rodney and Harding Powell, the healing of Bella. It had worked with the peculiar rhythm of its own, and always in a strict, a measurable proportion to the purity of her intention. To Harding's case she had brought nothing but innocent love and clean compassion. To Bella's nothing but a selfless and beneficent desire to help. And because in Bella's case at least she had been flawless, out of the three Bella's was the only cure that had lasted. It had most marvelously endured. And because of the flaw in her she had left Harding worse than she had found him. No wonder that poor Millie had reproached her. It mattered nothing that Millie's reproaches went too far. That in Millie's eyes she stood suspected of material sin.

2:38:06Anything short of the tangible had never been enough for Millie. It mattered nothing that though Millie might not believe it, she had sinned only in her thought. For Agatha who knew that was enough, more than enough, it counted more. For thought went wider and deeper than any deed. It was of the very order of the powers intangible, wherewith she had worked. Why thoughts unborn and shapeless that ran under the threshold and hid there, counted more in that world where it, the unuttered, the hidden and the secret rained. She knew now that her surrender of last night had been the ultimate deliverance. She was not afraid any more to meet Rodney, where she had been made pure from desire. She was safeguarded forever. She had been gone about an hour when she heard him at the gate again and in the room below. She went down to him. He came forward to meet her as she entered. He closed the door behind them, but her eyes held them apart. Did you not get my wire, she said?

2:39:06Yes, I got it. Then why did I come? Because I knew what was happening. I wasn't going to leave you here for Powell to terrify you out of your life. Surely you thought they'd gone. I knew they hadn't or you wouldn't have wired. But I would. I'd have wired in any case. To put me off? To put you off. Why? He questioned without divination or forewarning the veil of flesh was as yet over his eyes so that he could not see. Because I didn't mean that you should come. That you should ever come again, Rodney. He smiled. So you went back on me, did you? If you call it going back, she longed for him to see. That was only because you were frightened, he said. He turned from her and paced the room uneasily as if he saw. Resently he drew up by the hearth and stood there for a moment puzzling it out, and she thought that he had seen. He hadn't. He faced her with a smile again.

2:40:07But it was no good, dear, was it? As if I wouldn't know what it meant. You wouldn't have done it if you hadn't been ill. You lost your nerve. No wonder would those Powell's praying on you body and soul for weeks. No, Rodney, no. I didn't want you to come back, and I think now it would be better if you didn't stay. They seemed to her now that perhaps he had seen and was fighting what he saw. I'm not going to stay, he said. I am going in another hour to take Powell away somewhere. He took it up where she had made him leave it. Then Agatha I shall come back again. I shall come back, let me see. On Sunday she swept that aside. Where are you going to take him? To a man I know who will look after him. Oh Rodney, it will break Millie's heart. He had come in her agitation to where he stood. She sat on the couch by the corner of the hearth, and he looked down at her there. No, he said, it won't. It will give him a chance to get all right. I've convinced her it's the only thing to do.

2:41:09He can't be left here for you to look after her. Did she tell you? She wouldn't have told me a thing if I hadn't made her. I dragged it out of her bit by bit. Rodney, that was cruel of you. Was it? I don't care. I've done it if she bled. What did she tell you? Pretty nearly everything I imagine, quite enough for me to see what between them they've been doing to you. Did she tell you how he got well? He did not answer all at once. It was as if he drew back before the question, alien and disturbed, shirking the discern yet unintelligible issue. Did she tell you Rodney, Agatha repeated? Well, yes, she told me. He seemed to be making reluctantly some admission. He sat down beside her, and his movement had the air of ending the discussion. But he did not look at her. What do you make of it, she said? This time he went visibly. I don't make anything.

2:42:10If it happened, if it happened like that, Agatha, it did happen. Well, I admit it was uncommonly queer. He left it there and reverted to his theme. But it's no wonder, if you sat down to that for six weeks, it's no wonder you got scared. It's inconceivable to me how that woman could have let you in for him. She knew what he was. She didn't know what I was doing till it was done. She'd no business to let you go on with it when she did know. Ah, but she knew then that it was all right. All right. Absolutely right. Rodney, she called to him as if she would compel him to see it as it was. I did know more for him than I did for you in Bella. He started. Bella, he repeated. He stared at her. He had seen something. You wondered how she got all right, didn't you? He said nothing. That was how. And still he did not speak.

2:43:10He sat there leaning forward, staring now at his own class tans. He looked as if he bowed himself before the irrefutable. And there was you too, before that. I know, he said then. I can understand that, but why Bella? Because Bella was the only way. She had not followed his thoughts nor he hers. The only way he said to work it, to keep the thing pure. I had to be certain of my motive, and I knew that if I could give Bella back to you, that would prove to me, I mean, that it was pure. But Bella, he said softly. Bella, howl, I can understand, and me. It was clear that he could get over all the rest, but he could not get over Bella. Bella's case convinced him. Bella's case could not be explained away or set aside. Before Bella's case, he was baffled, utterly defeated. He faced it with a certain awe. You were right after all about Bella, he said at last, and so was I.

2:44:10She didn't care for me as I told you, but she does care now. She knew it. That was what I was trying for, she said. That was what I meant. You meant it. It was the only way. That's why I didn't want you to come back. He sat silent, taking that in. Don't you see now how it works? You have to be pure crystal. That's why I didn't want you to come back. Obscurely through the veil of flesh he saw. And I am never to come back, he said. You will not need to come. You mean you won't want me? No, I shall not want you, because when I did want you it broke down. He smiled. I see, when you want me it breaks down. He rallied for a moment. He made his one last pitiful stand against the supernatural thing that was conquering him. He had risen to go. And when I want to come, when I long for you what then? Your longing will make no difference.

2:45:11He smiled also as if she foresaw how it would work, and that soon very soon he would cease to long for her. His hand was on the door. He smiled back at her. I don't want to shake your faith in it, he said. You can't shake my faith in it. Still, it breaks down. It breaks down, he cried. Never you don't understand, she said. It was the flaw in the crystal. Soon very soon he would know it. He had shown submission. She had no doubt of the working of the power. Bella remained as a sign that it had once been, and that given the flawless crystal it should be again. End of chapter 13 Recording by Expatriot in Bangor, Maine End of the flaw in the crystal by Mason Claire. This is Ashley Akinetti from the Almost Amos Podcast.

2:46:12You ever notice you and your spouse keep saying, we need to get away, but you never actually plan anything. That was us until we did something fun and spontaneous. We went to resortpass.com. There are hundreds of hotel resorts, pools and spas and private beaches that you can enjoy. You can spend the day at a luxury resort, pool, spa, massage without booking an overnight stay. I may have only been 15 minutes from home, but it felt like it was a whole different world. I'm thinking this is exactly what I needed. Disco to resortpass.com, choose your resort, choose your day, luxury resort day passes start at just $25. Once you post your daycation, people are going to ask where you are. Go to resortpass.com slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get $20 off when you spend $100. Discode almost famous at resortpass.com slash almost famous. At QVC, shopping is more than just checking out.

2:47:15It's discovering something new every day. Start with today's special value. Then explore exciting finds across the brands and categories you love. From beauty and fashion to home, culinary and outdoor living. Now at QVC.com.