He opened the door softly and with caution, because El-Râmi often

slept there on the hard soldier’s couch that occupied one corner,--but

this morning all was exactly as it had been left at night,--the books

and papers were undisturbed,--and, curiously enough, the little

sanctum presented a vacant and deserted appearance, as though it would

dumbly express a fear that its master was gone from it for ever. How

such a notion suggested itself to Féraz, he could not tell,--but he

was certainly conscious of a strange sinking at the heart, as he

paused in the act of throwing open one of the windows, and looked

round the quiet room. Had anything been moved or displaced during the

night that he should receive such a general impression of utter

emptiness? Nothing--so far as he could judge;--there was his brother’s

ebony chair wheeled slightly aside from the desk,--there were the

great globes, terrestrial and celestial,--there were the various

volumes lately used for reference,--and, apart from these, on the

table, was the old vellum book in Arabic that Féraz had once before

attempted to read. It was open,--a circumstance that struck Féraz

with some surprise, for he could not recall having seen it in that

position last evening. Perhaps El-Râmi had come down in the night to

refer to it and had left it there by accident? Féraz felt he must

examine it more nearly, and, approaching, he rested his elbows on the

table and fixed his eyes on the Arabic page before him which was

headed in scrolled lettering “The Mystery of Death.” As he read the

words, a beautiful butterfly flew in through the open window and

circled joyously round his head, till, presently espying the bunch of

heliotrope in the glass where Féraz had set it the previous day, it

fluttered off to that, and settled on the scented purple bloom, its

pretty wings quivering with happiness. Mechanically Féraz watched its

flight,--then his eyes returned and dwelt once more on the

time-stained lettering before him; “The Mystery of Death,”--and

following the close lines with his forefinger, he soon made out the

ensuing passages. “The Mystery of Death. Whereas, of this there is no

mystery at all, as the ignorant suppose, but only a clearing up of

many intricate matters. When the body dies,--or to express it with

more pertinacious exactitude, when the body resolves itself into the

living organisms of which earth is composed, it is because the Soul

has outgrown its mortal habitation and can no longer endure the

cramping narrowness of the same. We speak unjustly of the aged,

because by their taciturnity and inaptitude for worldly business, they

seem to us foolish, and of a peevish weakness; it should however be

remembered that it is a folly to complain of the breaking of the husk

when the corn is ripe. In old age the Soul is weary of and indifferent

to earthly things, and makes of its tiresome tenement a querulous

reproach,--it has exhausted earth’s pleasures and surpassed earth’s

needs, and palpitates for larger movement. When this is gained, the

husk falls, the grain sprouts forth--the Soul is freed,--and all

Nature teaches this lesson. To call the process ‘death’ and a

‘mystery’ is to repeat the error of barbarian ages,--for once the Soul

has no more use for the Body, you cannot detain it,--you cannot

compress its wings,--you cannot stifle its nature,--and, being

Eternal, it demands Eternity.”

“All that is true enough;”--murmured Féraz--“As true as any truth

possible, and yet people will not accept or understand it. All the

religions, all the preachers, all the teachers seem to avail them

nothing,--and they go on believing in death far more than in life.

What a sad and silly world it is!--always planning for itself and

never for God, and only turning to God in imminent danger like a

coward schoolboy who says he is sorry because he fears a whipping.”

Here he lifted his eyes from the book, feeling that some one was

looking at him, and, true enough, there in the doorway stood Zaroba.

Her withered face had an anxious expression and she held up a warning

finger.

“Hush! ...” she said whisperingly. ... “No noise! ... where is

El-Râmi?”

Féraz replied by a gesture, indicating that he was still upstairs at

work on his mysterious “experiment.”

Zaroba advanced slowly into the room, and seated herself on the

nearest chair.

“My mind misgives me;”--she said in low awe-stricken tones,--“My mind

misgives me; I have had dreams--_such_ dreams! All night I have tossed

and turned,--my head throbs here,”--and she pressed both hands upon

her brow,--“and my heart--my heart aches! I have seen strange

creatures clad in white,--ghostly faces of the past have stared at

me,--my dead children have caressed me,--my dead husband has kissed me

on the lips,--a kiss of ice, freezing me to the marrow. What does it

bode? No good--no good!--but ill! Like the sound of the flying feet of

the whirlwind that brings death to the sons of the desert, there is a

sound in my brain which says--‘Sorrow! Sorrow!’ again and yet again

‘Sorrow!’”

Sighing, she clasped her hands about her knees and rocked herself to

and fro, as though she were in pain. Féraz stood gazing at her

wistfully and with a somewhat troubled air,--her words impressed him

uncomfortably,--her very attitude suggested misery. The sunlight

beaming across her bent figure, flashed on the silver bangles that

circled her brown arms, and touched her rough gray hair to flecks of

brightness,--her black eyes almost hid themselves under their tired

drooping lids,--and when she ceased speaking her lips still moved as

though she inwardly muttered some weird incantation. Growing impatient

with her, he knew not why, the young man paced slowly up and down the

room; her deafness precluded him from speaking to her, and he just now

had no inclination to communicate with her in the usual way by

writing. And while he thus walked about, she continued her rocking

movement, and peered at him dubiously from under her bushy gray brows.

“It is ill work meddling with the gods;”--she began again

presently--“In old time they were vengeful,--and have they changed

because the times are new? Nay, nay! The nature of a man may alter

with the course of his passions,--but the nature of a god!--who shall

make it otherwise than what it has been from the beginning? Cruel,

cruel are the ways of the gods when they are thwarted;--there is no

mercy in the blind eyes of Fate! To tempt Destiny is to ask the

thunderbolt to fall and smite you,--to oppose the gods is as though a

babe’s hand should essay to lift the Universe. Have I not prayed the

Master, the wise and the proud El-Râmi Zarânos, to submit and not

contend? As God liveth, I say, let us submit while we can like the

slaves that we are, for in submission alone is safety!”

Féraz heard her with increasing irritation,--why need she come to him

with all this melancholy jabbering, he thought angrily. He leaned far

out of the open window and looked at the ugly houses of the little

square,--at the sooty trees, the sparrows hopping and quarrelling in

the road, the tradesmen’s carts that every now and again dashed to and

from their various customers’ doors in the aggravatingly mad fashion

they affect, and tried to realise that he was actually in busy

practical London, and not, as seemed at the moment more likely, in

some cavern of an Eastern desert, listening to an ancient sibyl

croaking misfortune. Just then a neighbouring clock struck nine, and

he hastily drew in his head from the outer air, and, making language

with his eloquent fingers, he mutely asked Zaroba if she were going

upstairs now, or whether she meant to wait till El-Râmi himself came

down?

She left off rocking to and fro, and half rose from her chair,--then

she hesitated.

“I have never waited”--she said--“before,--and why? Because the voice

of the Master has roused me from my deepest slumbers,--and, like a

finger of fire laid on my brain, his very thought has summoned my

attendance. But this morning no such voice has called,--no such

burning touch has stirred my senses,--how should I know what I must

do? If I go unbidden, will he not be angered?--and his anger works

like a poison in my blood! ... yet ... it is late, ... and his silence

is strange----”

She paused, passing her hand wearily across her eyes,--then stood up,

apparently resolved.

“I will obey the voices that whisper to me,”--she said, with a certain

majestic resignation and gravity--“The voices that cry to my heart

‘Sorrow! Sorrow!’ and yet again ‘Sorrow!’ If grief must come, then

welcome, grief!--one cannot gainsay the Fates. I will go hence and

prove the message of the air,--for the air holds invisible tongues

that do not lie.”

With a slow step she moved across the room,--and on a sudden impulse

Féraz sprang towards her exclaiming, “Zaroba!--stay!”--then

recollecting she could not hear a word, he checked himself and drew

aside to let her pass, with an air of indifference which he was far

from feeling. He was in truth wretched and ill at ease,--the

exhilaration with which he had arisen from sleep had given way to

intense depression, and he could not tell what ailed him.

“_Awake, Féraz! To-day dreams end, and life begins._” Those were the

strange words he had heard the first thing on awaking that

morning,--what could they mean, he wondered rather sadly? If dreams

were indeed to end, he would be sorry,--and if life, as mortals

generally lived it, were to begin for him, why then, he would be

sorrier still. Troubled and perplexed, he began to set the breakfast

in order, hoping by occupation to divert his thoughts and combat the

miserable feeling of vague dread which oppressed him, and which,

though he told himself how foolish and unreasonable it was, remained

increasingly persistent. All at once such a cry rang through the house

as almost turned his blood to ice,--a cry wild, despairing and full of

agony. It was repeated with piercing vehemence,--and Féraz, his heart

beating furiously, cleared the space of the room with one breathless

bound and rushed upstairs, there to confront Zaroba tossing her arms

distractedly and beating her breast like a creature demented.

“Lilith!” she gasped,--“Lilith has gone ... gone! ... and El-Râmi is

dead!”

XXXIX.

Pushing the panic-stricken woman aside, Féraz dashed back the

velvet curtains, and for the second time in his life penetrated the

mysterious chamber. Once in the beautiful room, rich with its purple

colour and warmth, he stopped as though he were smitten with sudden

paralysis,--every artery in his body pulsated with terror,--it was

true! ... true that Lilith was no longer there! This was the first

astounding fact that bore itself in with awful conviction on his dazed

and bewildered mind;--the next thing he saw was the figure of his

brother, kneeling motionless by the vacant couch. Hushing his steps

and striving to calm his excitement, Féraz approached more nearly,

and throwing his arms round El-Râmi’s shoulders endeavoured to raise

him,--but all his efforts made no impression on that bent and rigid

form. Turning his eyes once more to the ivory blankness of the satin

couch on which the maiden Lilith had so long reclined, he saw with awe

and wonder the distinct impression of where her figure had been,

marked and hollowed out into deep curves and lines, which in their

turn were outlined by a tracing of fine grayish-white dust, like

sifted ashes. Following the track of this powdery substance, he still

more clearly discerned the impress of her vanished shape; and,

shuddering in every limb, he asked himself--Could that--that dust--be

all--all that was left of ... of Lilith? ... What dire tragedy had

been enacted during the night?--what awful catastrophe had chanced to

_her_--to _him_, his beloved brother, whom he strove once more to lift

from his kneeling position, but in vain. Zaroba stood beside him,

shivering, wailing, staring, and wringing her hands, till Féraz

dry-eyed and desperate, finding his own strength not sufficient, bade

her, by a passionate gesture, assist him. Trembling violently, she

obeyed, and between them both they at last managed to drag El-Râmi up

from the ground and get him to a chair, where Féraz chafed his hands,

bathed his forehead, and used every possible means to restore

animation. Did his heart still beat? Yes, feebly and irregularly;--and

presently one or two faint gasping sighs came from the labouring

breast.

“Thank God!” muttered Féraz--“Whatever has happened, he lives!--Thank

God he lives! When he recovers, he will tell me all;--there can be no

secrets now between him and me.”

And he resumed his quick and careful ministrations, while Zaroba still

wailed and wrung her hands, and stared miserably at the empty couch,

whereon her beautiful charge had lain, slumbering away the hours and

days for six long years. She too saw the little heaps and trackings of

gray dust on the pillows and coverlid, and her feeble limbs shook with

such terror that she could scarcely stand.

“The gods have taken her!” she whispered faintly through her pallid

lips--“The gods are avenged! When did they ever have mercy! They have

claimed their own with the breath and the fire of lightning, and the

dust of a maiden’s beauty is no more than the dust of a flower! The

dreadful, terrible gods are avenged--at last ... at last!”

And sinking down upon the floor, she huddled herself together, and

drew her yellow draperies over her head, after the Eastern manner of

expressing inconsolable grief, and covered her aged features from the

very light of day.

Féraz heeded her not at all, his sole attention being occupied in the

care of his brother, whose large black eyes now opened suddenly and

regarded him with a vacant expression like the eyes of a blind man. A

great shudder ran through his frame,--he looked curiously at his own

hands as Féraz gently pressed and rubbed them,--and he stared all

round the room in vaguely-inquiring wonderment. Presently his

wandering glance came back to Féraz, and the vacancy of his

expression softened into a certain pleased mildness,--his lips parted

in a little smile, but he said nothing.

“You are better, El-Râmi, my brother?” murmured Féraz caressingly,

trembling and almost weeping in the excess of his affectionate

anxiety, the while he placed his own figure so that it might obstruct

a too immediate view of Lilith’s vacant couch, and the covered

crouching form of old Zaroba beside it--“You have no pain? ... you do

not suffer?”

El-Râmi made no answer for the moment;--he was looking at Féraz with

a gentle but puzzled inquisitiveness. Presently his dark brows

contracted slightly, as though he were trying to connect some

perplexing chain of ideas,--then he gave a slight gesture of fatigue

and indifference.

“You will excuse me, I hope,--” he then said with plaintive

courtesy--“I have forgotten your name. I believe I met you once, but I

cannot remember where.”

The heart of poor Féraz stood still, ... a great sob rose in his

throat. But he checked it bravely,--he would not, he could not, he

dared not give way to the awful fear that began to creep like a frost

through his warm young blood.

“You cannot remember Féraz?” he said gently--“Your own Féraz? ...

your little brother, to whom you have been life, hope, joy,

work--everything of value in the world!” Here his voice failed him,

and he nearly broke down.

El-Râmi looked at him in grave surprise.

“You are very good!” he murmured, with a feebly polite wave of his

hand;--“You overrate my poor powers. I am glad to have been useful to

you--very glad!”

Here he paused;--his head sank forward on his breast, and his eyes

closed.

“El-Râmi!” cried Féraz, the hot tears forcing their way between his

eyelids--“Oh, my belovëd brother!--have you no thought for me?”

El-Râmi opened his eyes and stared;--then smiled.

“No thought?” he repeated--“Oh, you mistake!--I have thought very

much,--very much indeed, about many things. Not about you

perhaps,--but then I do not know you. You say your name is

Féraz,--that is very strange; it is not at all a common name. I only

knew one Féraz,--he was my brother, or seemed so for a time,--but I

found out afterwards, ... hush! ... come closer! ...” and he lowered

his voice to a whisper,--“that he was not a mortal, but an angel,--the

angel of a Star. The Star knew him better than I did.”

Féraz turned away his head,--the tears were falling down his

cheeks--he could not speak. He realised the bitter truth,--the

delicate overstrained mechanism of his brother’s mind had given way

under excessive pain and pressure,--that brilliant, proud, astute,

cold and defiant intellect was all unstrung and out of gear, and

rendered useless, perchance for ever.

El-Râmi however seemed to have some glimmering perception of Féraz’s

grief, for he put out a trembling hand and turned his brother’s face

towards him with gentle concern.

“Tears?” he said in a surprised tone--“Why should you weep? There is

nothing to weep for;--God is very good.”

And with an effort, he rose from the chair in which he had sat, and

standing upright, looked about him. His eye at once lighted on the

vase of roses at the foot of the couch and he began to tremble

violently. Féraz caught him by the arm,--and then he seemed startled

and afraid.

“She promised, ... she promised!” he began in an incoherent rambling

way--“and you must not interfere,--you must let me do her bidding.

‘Look for me where the roses are; there will I stand and wait!’ She

said that,--and she will wait, and I will look, for she is sure to

keep her word--no angel ever forgets. You must not hinder me;--I have

to watch and pray,--you must help me, not hinder me. I shall die if

you will not let me do what she asks;--you cannot tell how sweet her

voice is;--she talks to me and tells me of such wonderful

things,--things too beautiful to be believed, yet they are true. I

know so well my work;--work that must be done,--you will not hinder

me?”

“No, no!”--said Féraz, in anguish himself, yet willing to say

anything to soothe his brother’s trembling excitement--“No, no! You

shall not be hindered,--I will help you,--I will watch with you,--I

will pray ...” and here again the poor fellow nearly broke down into

womanish sobbing.

“Yes!” said El-Râmi, eagerly catching at the word--“Pray! You will

pray--and so will I;--that is good,--that is what I need,--prayer,

they say, draws all Heaven down to earth. It is strange,--but so it

is. You know”--he added, with a faint gleam of intelligence lighting

up for a moment his wandering eyes--“Lilith is not here! Not here, nor

there, ... she is Everywhere!”

A terrible pallor stole over his face, giving it almost the livid hue

of death,--and Féraz, alarmed, threw one arm strongly and resolutely

about him. But El-Râmi crouched and shuddered, and hid his eyes as

though he strove to shelter himself from the fury of a whirlwind.

“Everywhere!” he moaned--“In the flowers, in the trees, in the winds,

in the sound of the sea, in the silence of the night, in the slow

breaking of the dawn,--in all these things is the Soul of Lilith!

Beautiful, indestructible, terrible Lilith! She permeates the world,

she pervades the atmosphere, she shapes and unshapes herself at

pleasure,--she floats, or flies, or sleeps at will;--in substance, a

cloud;--in radiance, a rainbow! She is the essence of God in the

transient shape of an angel--never the same, but for ever immortal.

She soars aloft--she melts like mist in the vast Unseen!--and I--I--I

shall never find her, never know her, never see her, never, never

again!”

The harrowing tone of voice in which he uttered these words pierced

Féraz to the heart, but he would not give way to his own emotion.

“Come, El-Râmi!” he said very gently--“Do not stay here,--come with

me. You are weak,--rest on my arm; you must try and recover your

strength,--remember, you have work to do.”

“True, true!” said El-Râmi, rousing himself--“Yes, you are

right,--there is much to be done. Nothing is so difficult as patience.

To be left all alone, and to be patient, is very hard,--but I will

come,--I will come.”

He suffered himself to be led towards the door,--then, all at once he

came to an abrupt standstill, and looking round, gazed full on the

empty couch where Lilith had so long been royally enshrined. A sudden

passion seemed to seize him--his eyes sparkled luridly,--a sort of

inward paroxysm convulsed his features, and he clutched Féraz by the

shoulder with a grip as hard as steel.

“Roses and lilies and gold!” he muttered thickly--“They were all

there, those delicate treasures, those airy nothings of which God

makes woman! Roses for the features, lilies for the bosom, gold for

the hair!--roses, lilies, and gold! They were mine,--but I have burned

them all!--I have burned the roses and lilies, and melted the gold.

Dust!--dust and ashes! But the dust is not Lilith. No!--it is only the

dust of the roses, the dust of the lilies, the dust of gold. Roses,

lilies, and gold! So sweet they are and fair to the sight, one would

almost take them for real substance; but they are Shadows!--shadows

that pass as we touch them,--shadows that always go, when most we

would have them stay!”

He finished with a deep shuddering sigh, and then, loosening his grasp

of Féraz, began to stumble his way hurriedly out of the apartment,

with the manner of one who is lost in a dense fog and cannot see

whither he is going. Féraz hastened to assist and support him,

whereupon he looked up with a pathetic and smiling gratefulness.

“You are very good to me,” he said, with a gentle courtesy, which in

his condition was peculiarly touching--“I thought I should never need

any support;--but I was wrong--quite wrong,--and it is kind of you to

help me. My eyes are rather dim,--there was too much light among the

roses, ... and I find this place extremely dark, ... it makes me feel

a little confused _here_;”--and he passed his hand across his forehead

with a troubled gesture, and looked anxiously at Féraz, as though he

would ask him for some explanation of his symptoms.

“Yes, yes!” murmured Féraz soothingly--“You must be tired--you will

rest, and presently you will feel strong and well again. Do not

hurry,--lean on me,”--and he guided his brother’s trembling limbs

carefully down the stairs, a step at a time, thinking within himself

in deep sorrow--Could this be the proud El-Râmi, clinging to him thus

like a weak old man afraid to move? Oh, what a wreck was here!--what a

change had been wrought in the few hours of the past night!--and ever

the fateful question returned again and again to trouble him--What had

become of Lilith? That she was gone was self-evident,--and he gathered

some inkling of the awful truth from his brother’s rambling words. He

remembered that El-Râmi had previously declared Lilith to be _dead_,

so far as her body was concerned, and only kept _apparently_ alive by

artificial means;--he could easily imagine it possible for those

artificial means to lose their efficacy in the end, ... and then, ...

for the girl’s beautiful body to crumble into that dissolution which

would have been its fate long ago, had Nature had her way. All this he

could dimly surmise,--but he had been kept so much in the dark as to

the real aim and intention of his brother’s “experiment” that it was

not likely he would ever understand everything that had occurred;--so

that Lilith’s mysterious evanishment seemed to him like a horrible

delusion;--it could not be! he kept on repeating over and over again

to himself, and yet it was!

Moving with slow and cautious tread, he got El-Râmi at last into his

own study, wondering whether the sight of the familiar objects he was

daily accustomed to, would bring him back to a reasonable perception

of his surroundings. He waited anxiously, while his brother stood

still, shivering slightly and looking about the room with listless,

unrecognising eyes. Presently, in a voice that was both weary and

petulant, El-Râmi spoke.

“You will not leave me alone, I hope?” he said; “I am very old and

feeble, and I have done you no wrong,--I do not see why you should

leave me to myself. I should be glad if you would stay with me a

little while, because everything is at present so strange to me;--I

shall no doubt get more accustomed to it in time. You are perhaps not

aware that I wished to live through a great many centuries--and my

wish was granted;--I have lived longer than any man, especially since

She left me,--and now I am growing old, and I am easily tired. I do

not know this place at all--is it a World or a Dream?”

At this question, it seemed to Féraz that he heard again, like a

silver clarion ringing through silence, the mysterious voice that had

roused him that morning saying, “_Awake, Féraz! To-day dreams end,

and life begins!_” ... He understood, and he bent his head

resignedly,--he knew now what the “life” thus indicated meant;--it

meant a sacrificing of all his poetic aspirations, his music, and his

fantastic happy visions,--a complete immolation of himself and his own

desires, for the sake of his brother. His brother, who had once ruled

him absolutely, was now to be ruled _by_ him;--helpless as a child,

the once self-sufficient and haughty El-Râmi was to be dependent for

everything upon the very creature who had lately been his slave,--and

Féraz, humbly reading in these reversed circumstances the Divine Law

of Compensation, answered his brother’s plaintive query--“Is it a

World or a Dream?” with manful tenderness.

“It is a World,”--he said--“not a Dream, beloved El-Râmi--but a

Reality. It is a fair garden belonging to God and the things of

God”--he paused, seeing that El-Râmi smiled placidly and nodded his

head as though he heard pleasant music,--then he went on steadily--“a

garden in which immortal spirits wander for a time self-exiled, till

they fully realise the worth and loveliness of the higher lands they

have forsaken. Do you understand me, O dear and honoured one?--do you

understand? None love their home so dearly as those who have left it

for a time--and it is only for a time--a short, short time,”--and

Féraz, deeply moved by his mingled sorrow and affection, kissed and

clasped his brother’s hands--“and all the beauty we see here in this

beautiful small world, is made to remind us of the greater beauty

yonder. We look, as it were, into a little mirror, which reflects, in

exquisite miniature, the face of Heaven! See!”--and he pointed to the

brilliant blaze of sunshine that streamed through the window and

illumined the whole room--“There is the tiny copy of the larger Light

above,--and in that little light the flowers grow, the harvests ripen,

the trees bud, the birds sing, and every living creature

rejoices,--but in the other Greater Light, God lives, and angels love

and have their being;”--here Féraz broke off abruptly, wondering if

he might risk the utterance of the words that next rose involuntarily

to his lips, while El-Râmi gazed at him with great wide-open eager

eyes like those of a child listening to a fairy story.

“Yes, yes!--what next?” he demanded impatiently--“This is good news

you give me;--the angels love, you say, and God lives,--yes!--tell me

more, ... more!”

“All angels love and have their being in that Greater

Light,”--continued Féraz softly and steadily--“And there too is

Lilith--beautiful--deathless,--faithful----”

“True!” cried El-Râmi, with a sort of sobbing cry--“True! ... She is

there,--she promised--and I shall know, ... I shall know where to find

her after all, for she told me plainly--‘Look for me where the roses

are,--there will I stand and wait.’”

He tottered, and seemed about to fall;--but when Féraz would have

supported him, he shook his head, and pointing tremblingly to the

amber ray of sunshine pouring itself upon the ground:

“Into the light!”--he murmured--“I am all in the dark;--lead me out of

the darkness into the light.”

And Féraz led him, where he desired, and seated him in his own chair

in the full glory of the morning radiance that rippled about him like

molten gold, and shone caressingly on his white hair,--his dark face

that in its great pallor looked as though it were carved in

bronze,--and his black, piteous, wandering eyes. A butterfly danced

towards him in the sparkling shower of sunbeams, the same that had

flown in an hour before and alighted on the heliotrope that adorned

the centre of the table. El-Râmi’s attention was attracted by it--and

he watched its airy flutterings with a pleased, yet vacant smile. Then

he stretched out his hands in the golden light, and lifting them

upward, clasped them together and closed his eyes.

“Our Father!” ... he murmured; “which art in Heaven! ... Hallowed be

Thy Name!”

Féraz, bending heedfully over him, caught the words as they were

faintly whispered,--caught the hands as they dropped inert from their

supplicating posture and laid them gently back;--then listened again

with strained attention, the pitying tears gathering thick upon his

lashes.

“Our Father!” ... once more that familiar appeal of kinship to the

Divine stole upon the air like a far-off sigh,--then came the sound of

regular and quiet breathing;--Nature had shed upon the overtaxed brain

her balm of blessed unconsciousness,--and like a tired child, the

proud El-Râmi slept.

XL.

Upstairs meanwhile, in the room that had been Lilith’s there reigned

the silence of a deep desolation. The woman Zaroba still crouched

there, huddled on the floor, a mere heap of amber draperies,--her head

covered, her features hidden. Now and then a violent shuddering seized

her,--but otherwise she gave no sign of life. Hours passed;--she knew

nothing, she thought of nothing; she was stupefied with misery and a

great inextinguishable fear. To her bewildered, darkly superstitious,

more than pagan mind, it seemed as if some terrible avenging angel had

descended in the night and torn away her beautiful charge out of sheer

spite and jealousy lest she should awake to the joys of earth’s life

and love. It had always been her fixed idea that the chief and most

powerful ingredient of the Divine character (and of the human also)

was jealousy; and she considered therefore that all women, as soon as

they were born, should be solemnly dedicated to the ancient goddess

Anaïtis. Anaïtis was a useful and accommodating deity, who in the

old days, had unlimited power to make all things pure. A woman might

have fifty lovers, and yet none could dare accuse her of vileness if

she were a “daughter” or “priestess” of Anaïtis. She might have been

guilty of any amount of moral enormity, but she was held to be the

chastest of virgins if Anaïtis were her protectress and mistress. And

so, in the eyes of Zaroba, Anaïtis was the true patroness of

love,--she sanctified the joys of lovers and took away from them all

imputation of sin; and many and many a time had the poor, ignorant,

heathenish old woman secretly invoked the protection of this almost

forgotten pagan goddess for the holy maiden Lilith. And now--now she

wondered tremblingly, if in this she had done wrong? ... More than for

anything in the world had she longed that El-Râmi, the “wise man” who

scoffed at passion with a light contempt, should love with a lover’s

wild idolatry the beautiful creature who was so completely in his

power;--in her dull, half-savage, stupid way, she had thought that

such a result of the long six years’ “experiment” could but bring

happiness to both man and maid; and she spared no pains to try and

foster the spark of mere interest which El-Râmi had for his “subject”

into the flame of a lover’s ardour. For this cause she had brought

Féraz to look upon the tranced girl, in order that El-Râmi knowing

of it, might feel the subtle prick of that perpetual motor,

jealousy,--for this she had said all she dared say, concerning love

and its unconquerable nature;--and now, just when her long-cherished

wish seemed on the point of being granted, some dreadful Invisible

Power had rushed in between the two, and destroyed Lilith with the

fire of wrath and revenge;--at any rate that was how she regarded it.

The sleeping girl had grown dear to her,--it war impossible not to

love such a picture of innocent, entrancing, ideal beauty,--and she

felt as though her heart had been torn open and its very core wrenched

out by a cruel and hasty hand. She knew nothing as yet of the fate

that had overtaken El-Râmi himself,--for as she could not hear a

sound of the human voice, she had only dimly seen that he was led from

the room by his young brother, and that he looked ill, feeble, and

distraught. What she realised most positively and with the greatest

bitterness, was the fact of Lilith’s loss,--Lilith’s evident

destruction. This was undeniable,--this was irremediable;--and she

thought of it till her aged brain burned as with some inward consuming

fire, and her thin blood seemed turning to ice.

“Who has done it?” she muttered--“Who has claimed her? It must be the

Christ,--the cold, quiet, pallid Christ, with His bleeding hands and

beckoning eyes! He is a new god,--He has called, and she, Lilith, has

obeyed! Without love, without life, without aught in the world save

the lily-garb of untouched holiness,--it is what the pale Christ

seeks, and He has found it here,--here, with the child who slept the

sleep of innocent ignorance--here where no thought of passion ever

entered unless _I_ breathed it,--or perchance he--El-Râmi--thought

it--unknowingly. O what a white flower for the Christ in Heaven, is

Lilith!--What a branch of bud and blossom! ... Ah, cruel, cold new

gods of the Earth!--how long shall their sorrowful reign endure! Who

will bring back the wise old gods,--the gods of the ancient days,--the

gods who loved and were not ashamed,--the gods of mirth and life and

health,--they would have left me Lilith,--they would have said--‘Lo,

how this woman is old and poor,--she hath lost all that she ever

had,--let us leave her the child she loves, albeit it is not her own

but ours;--we are great gods, but we are merciful!’ Oh, Lilith,

Lilith! child of the sun and air, and daughter of sleep! would I had

perished instead of thee!--Would I had passed away into darkness, and

thou been spared to the light!”

Thus she wailed and moaned, her face hidden, her limbs quivering, and

she knew not how long she had stayed thus, though all the morning had

passed and the afternoon had begun. At last she was roused by the

gentle yet firm pressure of a hand on her shoulder, and, slowly

uncovering her drawn and anguished features she met the sorrowful eyes

of Féraz looking into hers. With a mute earnest gesture he bade her

rise. She obeyed, but so feebly and tremblingly, that he assisted her,

and led her to a chair, where she sat down, still quaking all over

with fear and utter wretchedness. Then he took a pencil and wrote on

the slate which his brother had been wont to use,--

“A great trouble has come upon us. God has been pleased to so darken

the mind of the beloved El-Râmi, that he knows us no longer, and is

ignorant of where he is. The wise man has been rendered simple,--and

the world seems to him as it seems to a child who has everything in

its life to learn. We must accept this ordinance as the Will of the

Supreme, and bring our own will in accordance with it, believing the

ultimate intention to be for the Highest Good. But for his former

life, El-Râmi exists no more,--the mind that guided his actions then

is gone.”

Slowly, and with pained, aching eyes Zaroba read these words,--she

grasped their purport and meaning thoroughly, and yet, she said not a

word. She was not surprised,--she was scarcely affected;--her feelings

seemed blunted or paralysed. El-Râmi was mad? To her, he had always

seemed mad,--with a madness born of terrible knowledge and power. To

be mad now was nothing; the loss of Lilith was amply sufficient cause

for his loss of wit. Nothing could be worse in her mind than to have

loved Lilith and lost her,--what was the use of uttering fresh cries

and ejaculations of woe! It was all over,--everything was ended,--so

far as she, Zaroba, was concerned. So she sat speechless,--her grand

old face rigid as bronze, with an expression upon it of stern

submission, as of one who waits immovably for more onslaughts from the

thunderbolts of destiny.

Féraz looked at her very compassionately, and wrote again--

“Good Zaroba, I know your grief. Rest--try to sleep. Do not see

El-Râmi to-day. It is better I should be alone with him. He is quite

peaceful and happy,--happier indeed than he has ever been. He has so

much to learn, he says, and he is quite satisfied. For to-day we must

be alone with our sorrows,--to-morrow we shall be able to see more

clearly what we must do.”

Still Zaroba said nothing. Presently however she arose, and walked

totteringly to the side of Lilith’s couch, ... there with an

eloquently tragic gesture of supremest despair, she pointed to the

gray-white ashes that were spread in that dreadfully suggestive

outline on the satin coverlet and pillows. Féraz, shuddering, shut

his eyes for a moment;--then, as he opened them again, he saw,

confronting him, the uncurtained picture of the “Christ and His

Disciples.” He remembered it well,--El-Râmi had bought it long ago

from among the despoiled treasures of an old dismantled

monastery,--and besides being a picture it was also a reliquary. He

stepped hastily up to it and felt for the secret spring which used, he

knew, to be there. He found and pressed it,--the whole of the picture

flew back like a door on a hinge, and showed the interior to be a

Gothic-shaped casket, lined with gold, at the back of which was

inserted a small piece of wood, supposed to have been a fragment of

the “True Cross.” There was nothing else in the casket,--and Féraz

leaving it open, turned to Zaroba who had watched him with dull,

scarcely comprehending eyes.

“Gather together these sacred ashes,”--he wrote again on the

slate,--“and place them in this golden recess,--it is a holy place fit

for such holy relics. El-Râmi would wish it, I know, if he could

understand or wish for anything,--and wherever we go, the picture will

go with us, for one day perhaps he will remember, ... and ask, ...”

He could trust himself to write no more,--and stood sadly enrapt, and

struggling with his own emotion.

“The Christ claims all!” muttered Zaroba wearily, resorting to her old

theme--“The crucified Christ, ... He must have all; the soul, the

body, the life, the love, the very ashes of the dead,--He must have

all ... all!”

Féraz heard her,--and taking up his pencil once more, wrote swiftly--

“You are right,--Christ has claimed Lilith. She was His to claim,--for

on this earth we are all His,--He gave His very life to make us so.

Let us thank God that we _are_ thus claimed,--for with Christ all

things are well.”

He turned away then immediately, and left her alone to her task,--a

task she performed with groans and trembling, till every vestige of

the delicate ashes, as fine as the dust of flowers, was safely and

reverently placed in its pure golden receptacle. Strange to say, one

very visible relic of the vanished Lilith’s bodily beauty had somehow

escaped destruction,--this was a long, bright waving tress of hair

which lay trembling on the glistening satin of the pillows like a lost

sunbeam. Over this lovely amber curl, old Zaroba stooped yearningly,

staring at it till her tears, the slow, bitter scalding tears of age,

fell upon it where it lay. She longed to take it for herself,--to wear

it against her own heart,--to kiss and cherish it as though it were a

living, sentient thing,--but, thinking of El-Râmi, her loyalty

prevailed, and she tenderly lifted the clinging, shining, soft silken

curl, and laid it by with the ashes in the antique shrine. All was now

done,--and she shut to the picture, which, when once closed, showed no

sign of any opening.

Lilith was gone indeed;--there was now no perceptible evidence to show

that she had ever existed. And, to the grief-stricken Zaroba, the face

and figure of the Christ, as painted on the reliquary at which she

gazed, seemed to assume a sudden triumph and majesty which appalled

while it impressed her. She read the words “Whom Say Ye That I Am?”

and shuddered; this “new god” with His tranquil smile and sorrowful

dignity had more terrors for her than any of the old pagan deities.

“I cannot! I cannot!” she whispered feebly; “I cannot take you to my

heart, cold Christ,--I cannot think it is good to wear the thorns of

perpetual sorrow! You offer no joy to the sad and weary world,--one

must sacrifice one’s dearest hopes,--one must bear the cross and weep

for the sins of all men, to be at all acceptable to You! I am old--but

I keep the memories of joy; I would not have all happiness reft out of

the poor lives of men. I would have them full of mirth,--I would have

them love where they list, drink pure wine, and rejoice in the breath

of Nature,--I would have them feast in the sunlight and dance in the

moonbeams, and crown themselves with the flowers of the woodland and

meadow, and grow ruddy and strong and manful and generous, and

free--free as the air! I would have their hearts bound high for the

pleasure of life;--not break in a search for things they can never

win. Ah no, cold Christ! I cannot love you!--at the touch of your

bleeding Hand the world freezes like a starving bird in a storm of

snow;--the hearts of men grow weak and weary, and of what avail is it,

O Prince of Grief, to live in sadness all one’s days for the hope of a

Heaven that comes not? O Lilith!--child of the sun, where art

thou?--Where? Never to have known the joys of love,--never to have

felt the real pulse of living,--never to have thrilled in a lover’s

embrace,--ah, Lilith, Lilith! Will Heaven compensate thee for such

loss? ... Never, never, never! No God, were He all the worlds’ gods in

One, can give aught but a desolate Eden to the loveless and lonely

soul!”

In such wise as this, she muttered and moaned all day long, never

stirring from the room that was called Lilith’s. Now and then she

moved up and down with slow restlessness,--sometimes fixing eager eyes

upon the vacant couch, with the vague idea that perhaps Lilith might

come back to it as suddenly as she had fled; and sometimes pausing by

the vase of roses, and touching their still fragrant, but fast-fading

blossoms. Time went on, and she never thought of breaking her fast, or

going to see how her master, El-Râmi, fared. His mind was gone--she

understood that well enough,--and in a strange wild way of her own,

she connected this sudden darkening of his intellect with the equally

sudden disappearance of Lilith; and she dreaded to look upon his face.

How the hours wore away she never knew; but by and by her limbs began

to ache heavily, and she crouched down upon the floor to rest. She

fell into a heavy stupor of unconsciousness,--and when she awoke at

last, the room was quite dark. She got up, stiff and cold and

terrified,--she groped about with her hands,--it seemed to her dazed

mind that she was in some sepulchral cave in the desert, all alone.

Her lips were dry,--her head swam,--and she tottered along, feeling

her way blindly, till she touched the velvet _portière_ that divided

the room from its little antechamber, and, dragging this aside in

nervous haste, she stumbled through, and out on to the landing, where

it was light. The staircase was before her,--the gas was lit in the

hall--and the house looked quite as usual,--yet she could not in the

least realise where she was. Indistinct images floated in her

brain,--there were strange noises in her ears,--and she only dimly

remembered El-Râmi, as though he were some one she had heard of long

ago, in a dream. Pausing on the stair-head, she tried to collect her

scattered senses,--but she felt sick and giddy, and her first instinct

was to seek the air. Clinging to the banisters, she tottered down the

stairs slowly, and reached the front-door, and, fumbling cautiously

with the handle a little while, succeeded in turning it, and letting

herself out into the street. The door had a self-acting spring, and

shut to instantly, and almost noiselessly, behind her,--but Féraz,

sitting in the study with his brother, fancied he heard a slight

sound, and came into the hall to see what it was. Finding everything

quiet, he concluded he was mistaken, and went back to his post beside

El-Râmi, who had been dozing nearly all day, only waking up now and

again to mildly accept the nourishment of soup and wine which Féraz

prepared and gave him to keep up his strength. He was perfectly

tranquil, and talked at times quite coherently of simple things, such

as the flowers on the table, the lamp, the books, and other ordinary

trifles. He only seemed a little troubled by his own physical

weakness,--but when Féraz assured him he would soon be strong, he

smiled, and with every appearance of content, dozed off again

peacefully. In the evening, however, he grew a little restless,--and

then Féraz tried what effect music would have upon him. Going to the

piano, he played soft and dreamy melodies, ... but as he did so, a

strange sense of loss stole over him,--he had the mechanism of the

art, but the marvellously delicate attunement of his imagination had

fled! Tears rose in his eyes,--he knew what was missing,--the

guiding-prop of his brother’s wondrous influence had fallen,--and with

a faint terror he realised that much of his poetic faculty would

perish also. He had to remember that he was not _naturally_ born a

poet or musician,--poesy and music had been El-Râmi’s fairy gifts to

him--the exquisitely happy poise of his mind had been due to his

brother’s daily influence and control. He would still retain the habit

and the memory of art, but what had been Genius, would now be simple

Talent,--no more,--yet what a difference between the two! Nevertheless

his touch on the familiar ivory keys was very tender and delicate, and

when, distrusting his own powers of composition, he played one of the

softest and quaintest of Grieg’s Norwegian folk-songs, he was more

than comforted by the expression of pleasure that illumined El-Râmi’s

features, and by the look of enraptured peace that softened the

piteous dark eyes.

“It is quite beautiful,--that music!” he murmured--“It is the pretty

sound the daisies make in growing.”

And he leaned back in his chair and composed himself to rest,--while

Féraz played on softly, thinking anxiously the while. True, most

true, that for him dreams had ended, and life had begun! What was he

to do? ... how was he to meet the daily needs of living,--how was he

to keep himself and his brother? His idea was to go at once to the

monastery in Cyprus, where he had formerly been a visitor,--it was

quiet and peaceful,--he would ask the brethren to take them in,--for

he himself detested the thought of a life in the world,--it was

repellent to him in every way,--and El-Râmi’s affliction would

necessitate solitude. And while he was thus puzzling himself as to the

future, there came a sharp knock at the door,--he hastened to see who

it was,--and a messenger handed him a telegram addressed to himself.

It came from the very place he was thinking about, sent by the Head of

the Order, and ran thus--

“We know all. It is the Will of God. Bring El-Râmi here,--our house

is open to you both.”

He uttered a low exclamation of thankfulness, the while he wondered

amazedly how it was that they, that far-removed Brotherhood, “knew

all”! It was very strange! He thought of the wondrous man whom he

called the “Master,” and who was understood to be “wise with the

wisdom of the angels,” and remembered that he was accredited with

being able to acquire information when he chose, by swift and

supernatural means. That he had done so in the present case seemed

evident, and Féraz stood still with the telegram in his hand,

stricken by a vague sense of awe as well as gratitude, thinking also

of the glittering vision he had had of that “glory of the angels in

the south”;--angels who were waiting for Lilith the night she

disappeared.

El-Râmi suddenly opened his weary eyes and looked at him.

“What is it?” he asked faintly--“Why has the music ceased?”

Féraz went up to his chair and knelt down beside it.

“You shall hear it again”--he said gently, “But you must sleep now,

and get strong,--because we are soon going away on a journey--a far,

beautiful journey----”

“To Heaven?” inquired El-Râmi--“Yes, I know--it is very far.”

Féraz sighed.

“No--not to Heaven,”--he answered--“Not yet. We shall find out the way

there, afterwards. But in the meantime, we are going to a place where

there are fruits and flowers,--and where the sun is very bright and

warm. You will come with me, will you not, El-Râmi?--there are

friends there who will be glad to see you.”

“I have no friends,”--said El-Râmi plaintively, “unless you are one.

I do not know if you are,--I hope so, but I am not sure. You have an

angel’s face,--and the angels have not always been kind to me. But I

will go with you wherever you wish,--is it a place in this world, or

in some other star?”

“In this world,”--replied Féraz--“A quiet little corner of this

world.”

“Ah!” and El-Râmi sighed profoundly--“I wish it had been in another.

There are so many millions and millions of worlds;--it seems foolish

waste of time to stay too long in this.”

He closed his eyes again, and Féraz let him rest,--till, when the

hour grew late, he persuaded him to lie down on his own bed, which he

did with the amiable docility of a child. Féraz himself, half

sitting, half reclining in a chair beside him, watched him all night

long, like a faithful dog guarding its master,--and so full was he of

anxious thought and tender care for his brother, that he scarcely

remembered Zaroba, and when he did, he felt sure that she too was

resting, and striving to forget in sleep the sorrows of the day.

XLI.

Zaroba had indeed forgotten her sorrows; but not in slumber, as

Féraz hoped and imagined. Little did he think that she was no longer

under the roof that had sheltered her for so many years; little could

he guess that she was out wandering all alone in the labyrinth of the

London streets,--a labyrinth of which she was almost totally ignorant,

having hardly ever been out of doors since El-Râmi had brought her

from the East. True, she had occasionally walked in the little square

opposite the house, and in a few of the streets adjoining,--once or

twice in Sloane Street itself, but no farther, for the sight of the

hurrying, pushing, busy throngs of men and women confused her. She had

not realised what she was doing when she let herself out that

night,--only when the street-door shut noiselessly upon her she was

vaguely startled,--and a sudden sense of great loneliness oppressed

her. Yet the fresh air blowing against her face was sweet and

balmy,--it helped to relieve the sickness at her heart, the dizziness

in her brain,--and she began to stroll along, neither knowing nor

caring whither she was going,--chiefly impelled by the strong

necessity she felt for movement,--space,--liberty. It had seemed to

her that she was being suffocated and buried alive in the darkness and

desolation that had fallen on the chamber of Lilith;--here, out in the

open, she was free,--she could breathe more easily. And so she went

on, almost unseeingly--the people she met looked to her like the

merest shadows. Her quaint garb attracted occasional attention from

some of the passers-by,--but her dark fierce face and glittering eyes

repelled all those who might have been inquisitive enough to stop and

question her. She drifted errantly, yet safely, through the jostling

crowds like a withered leaf on the edge of a storm,--her mind was

dazed with grief and fear and long fasting, but now and then as she

went, she smiled and seemed happy. Affliction had sunk so deep within

her, that it had reached the very core and centre of imagination and

touched it to vague issues of discordant joy;--wherefore, persuaded by

the magic music of delusion, she believed herself to be at home again

in her native Egypt. She fancied she was walking in the desert;--the

pavement seemed hot to her feet and she took it for the burning

sand,--and when after long and apparently interminable wanderings, she

found herself opposite Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square, she stared

at the four great lions with stupefied dismay.

“It is the gate of a city,”--she muttered--“and at this hour the

watchmen are asleep. I will go on--on still farther,--there must be

water close by, else there would be no city built.”

She had recovered a certain amount of physical strength in the

restorative influence of the fresh air, and walked with a less feeble

tread,--she became dimly conscious too of there being a number of

people about, and she drew her amber-coloured draperies more closely

over her head. It was a beautiful night;--the moon was full and

brilliant, and hundreds of pleasure-seekers were moving hither and

thither,--there was the usual rattle and roar of the vehicular traffic

of the town which, it must be remembered, Zaroba did not hear. Neither

did she clearly see anything that was taking place around her,--for

her sight was blurred, and the dull confusion in her brain continued.

She walked as in a dream,--she felt herself to be in a dream;--the

images of El-Râmi, of the lost Lilith, of the beautiful young Féraz,

had faded away from her recollection,--and she was living in the early

memories of days long past,--days of youth and hope and love and

promise. No one molested her; people in London are so accustomed to

the sight of foreigners and foreign costumes, that so long as they are

seen walking on their apparent way peaceably, they may do so in any

garb that pleases them, provided it be decent, without attracting much

attention save from a few small and irreverent street-arabs. And even

the personal and pointed observations of these misguided youngsters

fail to disturb the dignity of a Parsee in his fez, or to ruffle the

celestial composure of a Chinaman in his slippers. Zaroba, moreover,

did not present such a markedly distinctive appearance,--in her yellow

wrapper and silver bangles, she only looked like one of the _ayahs_

brought over from the East with the children of Anglo-Indian

mothers,--and she passed on uninterruptedly, happily deaf to the

noises around her, and almost blind to the ever-shifting human

pageantry of the busy thoroughfares.

“The gates of the city,” she went on murmuring--“they are shut, and

the watchmen are asleep. There must be water near,--a river or a place

of fountains, where the caravans pause to rest.”

Now and then the glare of the lights in the streets troubled her,--and

then she would come to a halt and pass her hands across her eyes,--but

this hesitation only lasted a minute,--and again she continued on her

aimless way. The road widened out before her,--the buildings grew

taller, statelier, and more imposing,--and suddenly she caught sight

of what she had longed for,--the glimmering of water silvering itself

in the light of the moon.

She had reached the Embankment;--and a sigh of satisfaction escaped

her, as she felt the damp chillness of the wind from the river blowing

against her burning forehead. The fresh coolness and silence soothed

her,--there were few people about,--and she slackened her pace

unconsciously, and smiled as she lifted her dark face to the clear and

quiet sky. She was faint and weary,--light-headed from want of

food,--but she was not conscious of this any more than a fever-patient

is conscious of his own delirium. She walked quite steadily now,--in

no haste, but with the grave, majestic step that belongs peculiarly to

women of her type and race,--her features were perfectly composed, and

her eyes very bright. And now she looked always at the river, and saw

nothing else for a time but its rippling surface lit up by the moon.

“They have cut down the reeds”--she said, softly under her

breath,--“and the tall palms are gone,--but the river is always the

same,--they cannot change that. Nothing can dethrone the Nile-god, or

disturb his sleep among the lilies, down towards the path of the

sunset. Here I shall meet my belovëd again,--here by the banks of the

Nile;--yet, it is strange and cruel that they should have cut down the

reeds. I remember how softly they rustled with the movements of the

little snakes that lived in the golden sand,--yes!--and the palm-trees

were high--so high that their feathery crowns seemed to touch the

stars. It was Egypt then,--and is it not Egypt now?

Yes--surely--surely it is Egypt!--but it is changed--changed,--all is

changed except love! Love is the same for ever, and the heart beats

true to the one sweet tune. Yes, we shall meet,--my belovëd and

I,--and we shall tell one another how long the time has seemed since

we parted yesterday. Only yesterday!--and it seems a century,--a long

long century of pain and fear, but the hours have passed, and the

waiting is over----”

She broke off abruptly, and stood suddenly still;--the Obelisk faced

her. Cut sharp and dark against the brilliant sky the huge

“Cleopatra’s Needle” towered solemnly aloft, its apex seeming to point

directly at a cluster of stars above it. Something there was in its

weird and frowning aspect, that appealed strangely to Zaroba’s

wandering intelligence,--she gazed at it with eager, dilated eyes.

“To the memory of heroes!” she said whisperingly, with a slight proud

gesture of her hand,--“To the glory of the Dead! Salutation to the

great gods and crowned Kings! Salutation and witness to the world of

what Hath Been! The river shall find a tongue--the shifting sands

shall uphold the record, so that none shall forget the things that

Were! For the things that Are, being weak, shall perish,--but the

things that Were, being strong, shall endure for ever! Here, as God

liveth, is the meeting-place; the palms are gone, but the Nile flows

on, and the moon is the sunlight of lovers. Here will I wait for my

belovëd,--he knows the appointed hour, ... he will not be long!”

She sat down, as close to the Obelisk as she could get, her face

turned towards the river and the moonlight; and the clocks of the

great city around her slowly tolled eleven. Her head dropped forward

on her chest,--though after a few minutes she lifted her face with an

anxious look--and,--“Did the child call me?” she said, and listened.

Then she relapsed into her former sunken posture, ... once a strong

shuddering shook her limbs as of intense cold in the warm June night,

... and then she was quite still ...

The hours passed on,--midnight came and went,--but she never stirred.

She seemed to belong to the Obelisk and its attendant sphinxes,--so

rigid was her figure, so weird in its outline, so solemn in its

absolute immobility. ... And in that same attitude she was found later

on towards morning, stone dead. There was no clue to her

identity,--nothing about her that gave any hint as to her possible

home or friends; her statuesque old face, grander than ever in the

serene pallor of death, somewhat awed the two burly policemen who

lifted her stark body and turned her features to the uncertain light

of early dawn, but it told them no history save that of age and

sorrow. So, in the sad chronicles entitled “Found Dead,” she was

described as “a woman unknown, of foreign appearance and costume,

seemingly of Eastern origin,”--and, after a day or two, being

unrecognised and unclaimed, she was buried in the usual way common to

all who perish without name and kindred in the dreary wilderness of a

great city. Féraz, missing her on the morning after her

disappearance, searched for her everywhere as well as he knew

how,--but, as he seldom read the newspapers, and probably would not

have recognised the brief account of her there if he had,--and as,

moreover, he knew nothing about certain dreary buildings in London

called mortuaries, where the bodies of the drowned, and murdered, and

unidentified, lie for a little while awaiting recognition, he remained

in complete and bewildered ignorance of her fate. He could not imagine

what had become of her, and he almost began to believe that she must

have taken ship back to her native land,--and that perhaps he might

hear of her again some day. And truly, she had gone back to her native

land,--in fancy;--and truly, it was also possible she might be met

with again some day,--in another world than this. But in the meantime

she had died,--as best befitted a servant of the old gods,--alone, and

in uncomplaining silence.

XLII.

The hair’s-breadth balance of a Thought,--the wrong or right control

of Will;--on these things hang the world, life, time, and all

Eternity. Such slight threads!--imperceptible, ungraspable,--and yet

withal strong,--strong enough to weave the everlasting web of good or

evil, joy or woe. On some such poise, as fine, as subtly delicate, the

whole majestic Universe swings round in its appointed course,--never a

pin’s point awry, never halting in its work, never hesitating in the

fulfilment of its laws, carrying out the Divine command with faithful

exactitude and punctuality. It is strange,--mournfully strange,--that

we never seem able to learn the grand lessons that are taught us by

this unvarying routine of natural forces,--Submission, Obedience,

Patience, Resignation, Hope. Preachers preach the doctrine,--teachers

teach it,--Nature silently and gloriously manifests it hourly; but

we,--we continue to shut our ears and eyes,--we prefer to retreat

within ourselves,--our little incomplete ignorant selves,--thinking we

shall be able to discover some way out of what has no egress, by the

cunning arguments of our own finite intellectual faculties. We fail

always;--we must fail. We are bound to find out sooner or later that

we must bend our stubborn knees in the presence of the Positive

Eternal. But till the poor brain gives way under the prolonged

pressure and strain of close inquiry and analysis, so long will it

persist in attempting to probe the Impenetrable,--so long will it

audaciously attempt to lift the veil that hides the Beyond instead of

resting content with what Nature teaches. “Wait”--she says--“Wait till

you are mentally able to understand the Explanation. Wait till the

Voice which is as a silver clarion, proclaims all truth, saying

‘Awake, Soul, for thy dream is past! Look now and see,--for thou art

strong enough to bear the Light.’”

Alas! we will not wait,--hence our life in these latter days of

analysis is a mere querulous complaint, instead of what it should be,

a perpetual thanksgiving.

Four seasons have passed away since the “Soul of Lilith” was caught up

into its native glory,--four seasons,--summer, autumn, winter and

spring--and now it is summer again,--summer in the Isle of Cyprus,

that once most sacred spot, dear to historic and poetic lore. Up among

the low olive-crowned hills of Baffo or Paphos, there is more shade

and coolness than in other parts of the island, and the retreat

believed to have been the favourite haunt of Venus is still full of

something like the mystical glamour that hallowed it of old. As the

singer of “Love-Letters of a Violinist” writes:

“There is a glamour all about the bay

As if the nymphs of Greece had tarried here.

The sands are golden and the rocks appear

Crested with silver; and the breezes play

Snatches of song they hummed when far away,

And then are hush’d as if from sudden fear.”

Flowers bloom luxuriantly, as though the white, blue-veined feet of

the goddess had but lately passed by,--there is a suggestive harmony

in the subdued low whispering of the trees, accompanied by the gentle

murmur of the waves, and “Hieros Kiphos,” or the Sacred Grove, still

bends its thick old boughs caressingly towards the greensward as

though to remind the dreaming earth of the bygone glories here buried

deep in its silent bosom. The poor fragment of the ruined “Temple of

Venus” once gorgeous with the gold and precious stones, silks and

embroideries, and other offerings brought from luxury-loving Tyre,

stands in its desolation among the quiet woods, and no sound of

rejoicing comes forth from its broken wall to stir the heated air. Yet

there is music not far off,--the sweet and solemn music of an organ

chant, accompanying a chorus of mild and mellow voices singing the

“Agnus Dei.” Here in this part of the country, the native inhabitants

are divided in their notions of religious worship,--they talk Greek,

albeit modern Greek, with impurities which were unknown to the

sonorous ancient tongue, and they are heroes no more, as the heroic

Byron has told us in his superb poesy, but simply slaves. They but

dimly comprehend Christianity,--the joyous paganism of the past is not

yet extinct, and the Virgin Mother of Christ is here adored as

“Aphroditissa.” Perhaps in dirty Famagousta they may be more

orthodox,--but among these sea-fronting hills where the sound of the

“Agnus Dei” solemnly rises and falls in soft surges of harmony, it is

still the old home of the Queen of Beauty, and still the birthplace of

Adonis, son of a Cyprian King. Commercial England is now the possessor

of this bower of sweet fancies,--this little corner of the world

haunted by a thousand poetic memories,--and in these prosy days but

few pilgrimages are made to a shrine that was once the glory of a

glorious age. To the native Cypriotes themselves the gods have simply

changed their names and become a little sadder and less playful, that

is all,--and to make up for the lost “Temple of Venus” there is,

hidden deep among the foliage, a small monastic retreat with a Cross

on its long low roof,--a place where a few poor monks work and

pray,--good men whose virtues are chiefly known to the sick, destitute

and needy. They call themselves simply “The Brotherhood,” and there

are only ten of them in all, including the youngest, who joined their

confraternity quite recently. They are very poor,--they wear rough

white garments and go barefooted, and their food is of the simplest;

but they do a vast amount of good in their unassuming way, and when

any of their neighbours are in trouble, such afflicted ones at once

climb the little eminence where Venus was worshipped with such pomp in

ancient days, and make direct for the plain unadorned habitation

devoted to the service of One who was “a Man of Sorrows and acquainted

with grief.” There they never fail to find consolation and practical

aid,--even their persistent prayers to “Aphroditissa” are condoned

with a broad and tender patience by these men who honestly strive to

broaden and not confine the road that leads to heaven. Thus Paphos is

sacred still,--with the glamour of old creeds and the wider glory of

the new,--yet though it is an interesting enough nook of the earth, it

is seldom that travellers elect to go thither either to admire or

explore. Therefore the sight of a travelling-carriage, a tumble-down

sort of vehicle, yet one of the best to be obtained thereabouts,

making its way slowly up the ascent, with people in modern fashionable

dress sitting therein, was a rare and wonderful spectacle to the

ragged Cypriote youth of both sexes, who either stood by the roadway,

pushing their tangled locks from their dark eyes and staring at it, or

else ran swiftly alongside its wheels to beg for coppers from its

occupants. There were four of these,--two ladies and two

gentlemen,--Sir Frederick Vaughan and Lady Vaughan (_née_ Idina

Chester); the fair and famous authoress, Irene Vassilius, and a

distinguished-looking handsome man of about forty or thereabouts, the

Duke of Strathlea, a friend of the Vaughans, who had entertained them

royally during the previous autumn at his grand old historic house in

Scotland. By a mere chance during the season, he had made the

acquaintance of Madame Vassilius, with whom he had fallen suddenly,

deeply and ardently in love. She, however, was the same unresponsive

far-gazing dreamy sibyl as ever, and though not entirely indifferent

to the gentle reverential homage paid to her by this chivalrous and

honourable gentleman, she could not make up her mind to give him any

decided encouragement. He appeared to make no progress with her

whatever,--and of course his discouragement increased his ardour. He

devised every sort of plan he could think of for obtaining as much of

her society as possible,--and finally, he had entreated the Vaughans

to persuade her to join them in a trip to the Mediterranean in his

yacht. At first she had refused,--then, with a sudden change of

humour, she had consented to go, provided the Island of Cyprus were

one of the places to be visited. Strathlea eagerly caught at and

agreed to this suggestion,--the journey had been undertaken, and had

so far proved most enjoyable. Now they had reached the spot Irene most

wished to see,--it was to please her that they were making the present

excursion to the “Temple of Venus,” or rather, to the small and

obscure monastery among the hills which she had expressed a strong

desire to visit,--and Strathlea, looking wistfully at her fair

thoughtful face, wondered whether after all these pleasant days passed

together between sparkling sea and radiant sky, she had any kinder

thoughts of him,--whether she would always be so quiet, so impassive,

so indifferent to the love of a true man’s heart?

The carriage went slowly,--the view widened with every upward yard of

the way,--and they were all silent, gazing at the glittering expanse

of blue ocean below them.

“How very warm it is!” said Lady Vaughan at last breaking the dumb

spell, and twirling her sunshade round and round to disperse a cloud

of gnats and small flies--“Fred, you look absolutely broiled! You are

so dreadfully sunburnt!”

“Am I?” and Sir Frederick smiled blandly,--he was as much in love with

his pretty frivolous wife as it is becoming for a man to be, and all

her remarks were received by him with the utmost docility--“Well, I

daresay I am. Yachting doesn’t improve the transparent delicacy of a

man’s complexion. Strathlea is too dark to show it much,--but I was

always a florid sort of fellow. You’ve no lack of colour yourself,

Idina.”

“Oh, I’m sure I look a fright!” responded her ladyship vivaciously and

with a slight touch of petulance--“Irene is the only one who appears

to keep cool. I believe her aspect would be positively frosty with the

thermometer marking 100 in the shade!”

Irene, who was gazing abstractedly out to sea, turned slowly and

lifted her drooping lace parasol slightly higher from her face. She

was pale,--and her deep-set gray eyes were liquid as though unshed

tears filled them.

“Did you speak to me, dear?” she inquired gently. “Have I done

something to vex you?”

Lady Vaughan laughed.

“No, of course you haven’t. The idea of your vexing anybody! You look

irritatingly cool in this tremendous heat,--that’s all.”

“I love the sun,”--said Irene dreamily--“To me it is always the

visible sign of God in the world. In London we have so little

sunshine,--and, one might add, so little of God also! I was just then

watching that golden blaze of light upon the sea.”

Strathlea looked at her interrogatively.

“And what does it suggest to you, Madame?” he asked--“The glory of a

great fame, or the splendour of a great love?”

“Neither”--she replied tranquilly--“Simply the reflex of Heaven on

Earth.”

“Love might be designated thus,” said Strathlea in a low tone.

She coloured a little, but offered no response.

“It was odd that you alone should have been told the news of poor

El-Râmi’s misfortune,” said Sir Frederick, abruptly addressing

her,--“None of us, not even my cousin Melthorpe, who knew him before

you did, had the least idea of it.”

“His brother wrote to me”--replied Irene; “Féraz, that beautiful

youth who accompanied him to Lady Melthorpe’s reception last year. But

he gave me no details,--he simply explained that El-Râmi, through

prolonged overstudy, had lost the balance of his mind. The letter was

very short, and in it he stated he was about to enter a religious

fraternity who had their abode near Baffo in Cyprus, and that the

brethren had consented to receive his brother also and take charge of

him in his great helplessness.”

“And their place is what we are going to see now”--finished Lady

Vaughan--“I daresay it will be immensely interesting. Poor El-Râmi!

Who would ever have thought it possible for him to lose his wits! I

shall never forget the first time I saw him at the theatre. _Hamlet_

was being played, and he entered in the very middle of the speech ‘To

be or not to be.’ I remember how he looked, perfectly. What eyes he

had!--they positively scared me!”

Her husband glanced at her admiringly.

“Do you know, Idina”--he said, “that El-Râmi told me on that very

night--the night of _Hamlet_ that I was destined to marry you?”

She lifted her eyelids in surprise.

“No! Really! And did you feel yourself compelled to carry out the

prophecy?”--and she laughed.

“No, I did not feel myself compelled,--but somehow, it

happened--didn’t it?” he inquired with naïve persistency.

“Of course it did! How absurd you are!” and she laughed again--“Are

you sorry?”

He gave her an expressive look,--he was really very much in love, and

she was still a new enough bride to blush at his amorous regard.

Strathlea moved impatiently in his seat;--the assured happiness of

others made him envious.

“I suppose this prophet,--El-Râmi, as you call him, prophesies no

longer, if his wits are lacking”--he said--“otherwise I should have

asked him to prophesy something good for me.”

No one answered. Lady Vaughan stole a meaning glance and smile at

Irene, but there was no touch of embarrassment or flush of colour on

that fair, serene, rather plaintive face.

“He always went into things with such terrible closeness, did

El-Râmi,--” said Sir Frederick after a pause--“No wonder his brain

gave way at last. You know you can’t keep on asking the why, why, why

of everything without getting shut up in the long run.”

“I think we were not meant to ask ‘why’ at all,” said Irene

slowly--“We are made to accept and believe that everything is for the

best.”

“There is a story extant in France of a certain philosopher who was

always asking why--” said Strathlea--“He was a taciturn man as a rule,

and seldom opened his lips except to say ‘Pourquoi?’ When his wife

died suddenly, he manifested no useless regrets--he merely said

‘Pourquoi?’ One day they told him his house in the country was burned

to the ground,--he shrugged his shoulders and said ‘Pourquoi?’ After a

bit he lost all his fortune,--his furniture was sold up,--he stared at

the bailiffs and said ‘Pourquoi?’ Later on he was suspected of being

in a plot to assassinate the King,--men came and seized his papers and

took him away to prison,--he made no resistance,--he only said

‘Pourquoi?’ He was tried, found guilty and condemned to death; the

judge asked him if he had anything to say? He replied at once

‘Pourquoi?’ No answer was vouchsafed to him, and in due time he was

taken to the scaffold. There the executioner bandaged his eyes,--he

said ‘Pourquoi?’--he was told to kneel down; he did so, but again

demanded ‘Pourquoi?’--the knife fell, and his head was severed from

his body--yet before it rolled into the basket, it trembled on the

block, its eyes opened, its lips moved, and for the last time uttered

that final, never-to-be answered query ‘Pourquoi?’!”

They all laughed at this story, and just then the carriage stopped.

The driver got down and explained in very bad French that he could go

no farther,--that the road had terminated, and that there was now only

a footpath which led through the trees to the little monastic retreat

whither they were bound. They alighted, therefore, and found

themselves close to the ruin supposed to have once been the “Temple of

Venus.” They paused for a moment, looking at the scene in silence.

“There must have been a great joyousness in the old creeds,” said

Strathlea softly, with an admiring glance at Irene’s slight, slim,

almost fairy-like figure clad in its close-fitting garb of silky

white--“At the shrine of Venus for example, one could declare one’s

love without fear or shame.”

“That can be done still,” observed Sir Frederick laughingly, “And is

done, pretty often. People haven’t left off making love because the

faith in Venus is exploded. I expect they’ll go on in the same old

abandoned way to the end of the chapter.”

And, throwing his arm round his wife’s waist, he sauntered on with her

towards the thicket of trees at the end of which their driver had told

them the “refuge” was situated, leaving Strathlea and Madame Vassilius

to follow. Strathlea perceived and was grateful for the opportunity

thus given, and ventured to approach Irene a little more closely. She

was still gazing out to the sea, her soft eyes were dreamy and

abstracted,--her small ungloved right hand hung down at her

side,--after a moment’s hesitation, he boldly lifted it and touched

its delicate whiteness with a kiss. She started nervously--she had

been away in the land of dreams,--and now she met his gaze with a

certain vague reproach in the sweet expression of her face.

“I cannot help it--” said Strathlea quickly, and in a low eager

tone--“I cannot, Irene! You know I love you,--you have seen it, and

you have discouraged and repelled me in every possible way,--but I am

not made of stone or marble--I am mere flesh and blood, and I must

speak. I love you, Irene! I love you--I will not unsay it. I want you

to be my wife. Will you, Irene? Do not be in a hurry to answer

me--think long enough to allow some pity for me to mingle with your

thoughts. Just imagine a little hand like this”--and he kissed it

again--“holding the pen with such a masterful grip and inditing to the

world the thoughts and words that live in the minds of thousands,--is

it such a cold hand that it is impervious to love’s caress? I

cannot--I will not believe it. You cannot be obdurate for ever. What

is there in love that it should repel you?”

She smiled gravely; and gently, very gently, withdrew her hand.

“It is not love that repels me--” she said, “It is what is _called_

love, in this world,--a selfish sentiment that is not love at all. I

assure you I am not insensible to your affection for me, my dear Duke,

... I wish for your sake I were differently constituted.”

She paused a moment, then added hastily, “See, the others are out of

sight--do let us overtake them.”

She moved away quickly with that soft gliding tread of hers which

reminded one of a poet’s sylph walking on a moonbeam, and he paced

beside her, half mortified, yet not altogether without hope.

“Why are you so anxious to see this man who has lost his wits,--this

El-Râmi Zarânos?” he asked, with a touch of jealousy in his

accents--“Was he more to you than most people?”

She raised her eyes with an expression of grave remonstrance.

“Your thoughts wrong me--” she said simply--“I never saw El-Râmi but

twice in my life,--I only pitied him greatly. I used to have a strong

instinct upon me that all would not be well with him in the end.”

“Why?”

“First, because he had no faith,--secondly, because he had an excess

of pride. He dismissed God out of his calculations altogether, and was

perfectly content to rely on the onward march of his own intellect.

Intellectual Egoism is always doomed to destruction,--this seems to be

a Law of the Universe. Indeed, Egoism, whether sensual or

intellectual, is always a defiance of God.”

Strathlea walked along in silence for a minute, then he said abruptly:

“It is odd to hear you speak like this, as if you were a religious

woman. You are not religious,--every one says so,--you are a

free-thinker,--and also, pardon me for repeating it, society supposes

you to be full of this sin you condemn--Intellectual Egoism.”

“Society may suppose what it pleases of me”--said Irene, “I was never

its favourite, and never shall be, nor do I court its good opinion.

Yes, I am a free-thinker, and freely think without narrow law or

boundary, of the majesty, beauty and surpassing goodness of God. As

for intellectual egoism,--I hope I am not in any respect guilty of it.

To be proud of what one does, or what one knows, has always seemed to

me the poorest sort of vanity,--and it is the stumbling block over

which a great many workers in the literary profession fall, never to

rise again. But you are quite right in saying I am not a ‘religious’

woman; I never go to church and I never patronise bazaars.”

The sparkle of mirth in her eyes was infectious, and he laughed. But

suddenly she stopped, and laid her hand on his arm.

“Listen,” she said, with a slight tremor in her voice--“You love me,

you say ... and I--I am not altogether indifferent to you--I confess

that much. Wait!” for in an excess of delight he had caught both her

hands in his own, and she loosened them gently--“Wait--you do not know

me, my dear friend. You do not understand my nature at all,--I

sometimes think myself it is not what is understood as ‘feminine.’ I

am an abnormal creature--and perhaps if you knew me better you would

not like me ...”

“I adore you!” said Strathlea impetuously, “and I shall always adore

you!”

She smiled rather sadly.

“You think so now,”--she said--“but you cannot be sure,--no man can

always be sure of himself. You spoke of society and its opinion of

me;--now, as a rule, average people do not like me,--they are vaguely

afraid of me,--and they think it is strange and almost dangerous for a

‘writing woman’ to be still young, and not entirely hideous. Literary

women generally are so safely and harmlessly repellent in look and

bearing. Then again, as you said, I am not a religious woman,--no, not

at all so in the accepted sense of the term. But with all my heart and

soul I believe in God, and the ultimate good of everything. I abhor

those who would narrow our vision of heavenly things by dogma or

rule--I resent all ideas of the Creator that seem to lessen His glory

by one iota. I may truly say I live in an ecstasy of faith, accepting

life as a wondrous miracle, and death as a crowning joy. I pray but

seldom, as I have nothing to ask for, being given far more than I

deserve,--and I complain of nothing save the blind, cruel injustice

and misjudgment shown by one human unit to another. This is not God’s

doing, but Man’s--and it will, it must, bring down full punishment in

due season.”

She paused a moment,--Strathlea was looking at her admiringly, and she

coloured suddenly at his gaze.

“Besides”--she added with an abrupt change of tone, from enthusiasm to

coldness, “you must not, my dear Duke, think that I feel myself in any

way distinguished or honoured by your proposal to make me your wife. I

do not. This sounds very brusque, I know, but I think as a general

rule in marriage, a woman gives a great deal more than she ever

receives. I am aware how very much your position and fortune might

appeal to many of my sex,--but I need scarcely tell you they have no

influence upon me. For, notwithstanding an entire lack of log-rollers

and press ‘booms’”--and she smiled--“my books bring me in large sums,

sufficient and more than sufficient for all my worldly needs. And I am

not ambitious to be a duchess.”

“You are cruel, Irene”--said Strathlea--“Should I ever attaint you

with worldly motives? I never wanted to be a duke--I was born so,--and

a horrid bore it is! If I were a poor man, could you fancy me?”

He looked at her,--and her eyes fell under his ardent gaze. He saw his

advantage, and profited by it.

“You do not positively hate me?” he asked.

She gave him one fleeting glance through her long lashes, and a faint

smile rested on her mouth.

“How could I?” she murmured--“you are my friend.”

“Well, will you try to like me a little more than a friend?”--he

continued eagerly--“Will you say to yourself now and then--‘He is a

big, bluff, clumsy Englishman, with more faults than virtues, more

money than brains, and a stupid title sticking upon him like a bow of

ribbon on a boar’s head, but he is very fond of me, and would give up

everything in the world for me’--will you say that to yourself, and

think as well as you can of me?--will you, Irene?”

She raised her head. All coldness and hauteur had left her face, and

her eyes were very soft and tender.

“My dear friend, I cannot hear you do yourself wrong”--she said--“and

I am not as unjust as you perhaps imagine. I know your worth. You have

more virtues than faults, more brains than money,--you are generous

and kindly, and in this instance, your title sets off the grace of a

true and gallant gentleman. Give me time to consider a little,--let us

join the Vaughans,--I promise you I will give you your answer to-day.”

A light flashed over his features, and stooping, he once more kissed

her hand. Then, as she moved on, a gracefully gliding figure under the

dark arching boughs, he followed with a firm joyous step such as might

have befitted a knight of the court of King Arthur who had, after hard

fighting, at last won some distinct pledge of his “ladye’s” future

favour.

XLIII.

Deeply embowered among arching boughs and covered with the luxuriant

foliage of many a climbing and flowering vine, the little monastic

refuge appeared at first sight more like the retreat of a poet or

painter than a religious house where holy ascetics fasted and prayed

and followed the difficult discipline of daily self-denial. When the

little party of visitors reached its quaint low door they all paused

before ringing the bell that hung visibly aloft among clustering

clematis, and looked about them in admiration.

“What a delicious place!” said Lady Vaughan, bending to scent the

odours of a rich musk rose that had pushed its lovely head through the

leaves as though inviting attention--“How peaceful! ... and listen!

What grand music they are singing!”

She held up her finger,--the others obeyed the gesture, and hushed

their steps to hear every note of the stately harmony that pealed out

upon the air. The brethren were chanting part of the grand Greek “Hymn

of Cleanthes,” a translation of which may be roughly rendered in the

following strophes:

“Many-named and most glorious of the Immortals, Almighty for ever,

Ruler of Nature whose government is order and law,

Hail, all hail! for good it is that mortals should praise thee!

“We are Thy offspring; we are the Image of Thy Voice,

And only the Image, as all mortal things are that live and move by

Thy power,

Therefore do we exalt Thy Name and sing of Thy glory forever!

“Thee doth the splendid Universe obey

Moving whithersoever Thou leadest,

And all are gladly swayed by Thee.

“Naught is done in the earth without thee, O God--

Nor in the divine sphere of the heavens, nor in the deepest depths of

the sea,

Save the works that evil men commit in their hours of folly.

“Yet thou knowest where to find place for superfluous things,

Thou dost order that which seems disorderly,

And things not dear to men are dear to Thee!

“Thou dost harmonise into One both Good and Evil,

For there is One Everlasting Reason for them all.

“O thou All-Giver, Dweller in the clouds, Lord of the thunder,

Save thou men from their own self-sought unhappiness,

Do thou, O Father, scatter darkness from their souls, and give

them light to discover true wisdom.

“In being honoured let them pay Thee Honour,

Hymning Thy glorious works continually as beseems mortal men,

Since there can be no greater glory for men or gods than this,

To praise for ever and ever the grand and Universal Law!

Amen!--Amen!--Amen!”

“Strange they should elect to sing that”--said Strathlea musingly--“I

remember learning it off by heart in my student days. They have left

out a verse of it here and there,--but it is quite a Pagan hymn.”

“It seems to me very good Christianity”--said Irene Vassilius, her

eyes kindling with emotion--“It is a grand and convincing act of

thanksgiving, and I think we have more cause for thankfulness than

supplication.”

“I am not yet quite sure about that myself”--murmured Strathlea in her

ear--“I shall know better when the day is ended which I need most,

prayer or thanksgiving.”

She coloured a little and her eyes fell,--meanwhile the solemn music

ceased.

“Shall I ring?” inquired Sir Frederick as the last note died away on

the air.

They all silently acquiesced,--and by means of a coarse rope hanging

down among the flowers the bell was gently set in motion. Its soft

clang was almost immediately answered by a venerable monk in white

garments, with a long rosary twisted into his girdle and a Cross and

Star blazoned in gold upon his breast.

“Benedicite!” said this personage mildly, making the sign of the cross

before otherwise addressing the visitors,--then, as they instinctively

bent their heads to the pious greeting, he opened the door a little

wider and asked them in French what they sought.

For answer Madame Vassilius stepped forward and gave him an open

letter, one which she knew would serve as a pass to obtain ready

admission to the monastery, and as the monk glanced it over his pale

features brightened visibly.

“Ah! Friends of our youngest brother Sebastian”--he said in fluent

English--“Enter! You are most heartily welcome.”

He stood aside, and they all passed under the low porch into a square

hall, painted from ceiling to floor in delicate fresco. The designs

were so beautiful and so admirably executed, that Strathlea could not

resist stopping to look at one or two of them.

“These are very fine”--he said, addressing the gray-haired recluse who

escorted them--“Are they the work of some ancient or modern artist?”

The old man smiled and gave a deprecating, almost apologetic gesture.

“They are the result of a few years’ pleasant labour”--he replied--“I

was very happy while employed thus.”

“You did them!” exclaimed Lady Vaughan, turning her eyes upon him in

frank wonder and admiration--“Why then you are a genius!”

The monk shook his head.

“Oh no, Madame, not so. We none of us lay claim to ‘genius’; that is

for those in the outer world,--here we simply work and do our best for

the mere love of doing it.”

Here, preceding them a little, he threw open a door, and ushered them

into a quaint low room, panelled in oak, and begged them to be seated

for a few moments while he went to inform “Brother Sebastian” of their

arrival.

Left alone they gazed about in silence, till Sir Frederick, after

staring hard at the panelled walls said--

“You may be pretty sure these fellows have carved every bit of that

oak themselves. Monks are always wonderful workmen,--_Laborare est

orare_, you know. By the way I noticed that monk artist who was with

us just now wore no tonsure,--I wonder why? Anyhow it’s a very ugly

disfigurement and quite senseless; they do well to abjure it.”

“Is this man you come to see,--El-Râmi--a member of the Fraternity?”

asked Strathlea of Irene in a low tone.

She shook her head compassionately.

“Oh no--poor creature,--he would not understand their rules or their

discipline. He is simply in their charge, as one who must for all his

life be weak and helpless.”

At that moment the door opened, and a tall slim figure appeared, clad

in the trailing white garments of the brotherhood; and in the dark

poetic face, brilliant eyes and fine sensitive mouth there was little

difficulty in recognising Féraz as the “Brother Sebastian” for whom

they waited. He advanced towards them with singular grace and quiet

dignity,--the former timidity and impetuosity of, youth had entirely

left him, and from his outward aspect and, bearing he looked like a

young saint whose thoughts were always set on the highest things, yet

who nevertheless had known what it was to suffer in the search for

peace.

“You are most welcome, Madame”--he said, inclining himself with a

courteous gentleness towards Irene,--“I expected you,--I felt sure

that you would one day come to see us. I know you were always

interested in my brother ...”

“I was, and am still”--replied Irene gently, “and in yourself also.”

Féraz, or “Brother Sebastian” as he was now called, made another

gentle salutation expressive of gratitude, and then turned his eyes

questioningly on the other members of the party.

“You will not need to be reminded of Sir Frederick Vaughan and Lady

Vaughan,”--went on Irene,--then as these exchanged greetings, she

added--“This gentleman whom you do not know is the Duke of

Strathlea,--we have made the journey from England in his yacht,

and----” she hesitated a moment, the colour deepening a little in her

fair cheeks--“he is a great friend of mine.”

Féraz glanced at her once,--then once at Strathlea, and a grave smile

softened his pensive face. He extended his hand with a frank

cordiality that was charming, and Strathlea pressed it warmly,

fascinated by the extreme beauty and dignity of this youthful ascetic,

sworn to the solitariness of the religious life ere he had touched his

manhood’s prime.

“And how is El-Râmi?” asked Sir Frederick with good-natured

bluffness--“My cousin Melthorpe was much distressed to hear what had

happened,--and so were we all,--really--a terrible calamity--but you

know overstudy will upset a man,--it’s no use doing too much----”

He broke off his incoherent remarks abruptly, embarrassed a little by

the calmly mournful gaze of “Brother Sebastian’s” deep dark eyes.

“You are very good, Sir Frederick,”--he said gently--“I am sure you

sympathise truly, and I thank you all for your sympathy. But--I am not

sure that I should be sorrowful for my brother’s seeming affliction.

God’s will has been made manifest in this, as in other things,--and we

must needs accept that will without complaint. For the rest, El-Râmi

is well,--and not only well, but happy. Let me take you to him.”

They hesitated,--all except Irene. Lady Vaughan was a nervous

creature,--she had a very vivid remembrance of El-Râmi’s “terrible

eyes”--they looked fiery enough when he was sane,--but how would they

look now when he was ... mad? She moved uneasily,--her husband pulled

his long moustache doubtfully as he studied her somewhat alarmed

countenance,--and Féraz, glancing at the group, silently understood

the situation.

“Will you come with me, Madame?” he said, addressing himself solely to

Irene--“It is better perhaps that you should see him first alone. But

he will not distress you ... he is quite harmless ... poor El-Râmi!”

In spite of himself his voice trembled,--and Irene’s warm heart

swelled for sympathy.

“I will come at once”--she said, and as she prepared to leave the room

Strathlea whispered: “Let me go with you!”

She gave a mute sign of assent,--and Féraz leading the way, they

quietly followed, while Sir Frederick and his wife remained behind.

They passed first through a long stone corridor,--then into a

beautiful quadrangular court with a fountain in its centre, and wooden

benches set at equal distances under its moss-grown vine-covered

colonnade. Flowers grew everywhere in the wildest, loveliest

profusion,--tame doves strutted about on the pavement with peaceful

and proud complacency, and palms and magnolias grew up in tall and

tangled profusion wherever they could obtain root-hold, casting their

long, leafy trembling shadows across the quadrangle and softening the

too dazzling light reflected from the brilliant sky above. Up in a far

corner of this little garden paradise, under the shade of a spreading

cedar, sat the placid figure of a man,--one of the brethren at first

he seemed, for he was clothed in the garb of the monastic order, and a

loose cowl was flung back from his uncovered head on which the hair

shone white and glistening as fine spun silver. His hands were loosely

clasped together,--his large dark eyes were fixed on the rays of light

that quivered prismatically in the foam of the tossing fountain, and

near his feet a couple of amorous snowy doves sat brooding in the sun.

He did not seem to hear the footsteps of his approaching visitors, and

even when they came close up to him, it was only by slow degrees that

he appeared to become conscious of their presence.

“El-Râmi!” said his brother with tender gentleness--“El-Râmi, these

are friends who have journeyed hither to see you.”

Then, like a man reluctantly awaking from a long and pleasant noonday

dream, he rose and stood up with singularly majestic dignity, and for

a moment looked so like the proud, indomitable El-Râmi of former

days, that Irene Vassilius in her intense interest and compassion for

him, half fancied that the surprise of seeing old acquaintances had

for a brief interval brought back both reason and remembrance. But

no,--his eyes rested upon her unrecognisingly, though he greeted her

and Strathlea also, with the stateliest of salutations.

“Friends are always welcome”--he said, “But friends are rare in the

world,--it is not in the world one must look for them. There was a

time I assure you, ... when I ... even I, ... could have had the most

powerful of all friends for the mere asking,--but it is too late

now--too late.”

He sighed profoundly, and seated himself again on the bench as before.

“What does he mean?” asked Strathlea of Féraz in a low tone.

“It is not always easy to understand him,” responded Féraz

gently--“But in this case, when he speaks of the friend he might have

had for the mere asking, he means,--God.”

The warm tears rushed into Irene’s eyes.

“Nay, God is his friend I am sure”--she said with fervour, “The great

Creator is no man’s enemy.”

Féraz gave her an eloquent look.

“True, dear Madame”--he answered,--“But there are times and seasons of

affliction when we feel and know ourselves to be unworthy of the

Divine friendship, and when our own conscience considers God as one

very far off.”

Yielding to the deep impulse of pity that swayed her, she advanced

softly, and sitting down beside El-Râmi, took his hand in her own. He

turned and looked at her,--at the fair delicate face and soft ardent

eyes,--at the slight dainty figure in its close-fitting white

garb,--and a faint wondering smile brightened his features.

“What is this?” he murmured, then glancing downward at her small white

ringless hand as it held his--“Is this an angel? Yes, it must

be,--well then, there is hope at last. You bring me news of Lilith?”

Irene started, and her heart beat nervously,--she could not understand

this, to her, new phase of his wandering mind. What was she to say in

answer to so strange a question?--for who was Lilith? She gazed

helplessly at Féraz,--he returned her look with one so earnest and

imploring, that she answered at once as she thought most advisable--

“Yes!”

A sudden trembling shook El-Râmi’s frame, and he seemed absorbed.

After a long pause, he lifted his dark eyes and fixed them solemnly

upon her.

“Then, she knows all now?” he demanded--“She understands that I am

patient?--that I repent?--that I believe?--and that I love her as she

would have me love her,--faithfully and far beyond all life and time?”

Without hesitation, and only anxious to soothe and comfort him, Irene

answered at once--

“Yes--yes--she understands. Be consoled--be patient still--you will

meet her soon again.”

“Soon again?” he echoed, with a pathetic glance upward at the dazzling

blue sky--“Soon? In a thousand years?--or a thousand thousand?--for so

do happy angels count the time. To me an hour is long--but to Lilith,

cycles are moments.”

His head sank on his breast,--he seemed to fall suddenly into a dreamy

state of meditation,--and just then a slow bell began to toll to and

fro from a wooden turret on the monastery roof.

“That is for vespers”--said Féraz--“Will you come, Madame, and hear

our singing? You shall see El-Râmi again afterwards.”

Silently she rose, but her movement to depart roused El-Râmi from his

abstraction, and he looked at her wistfully.

“They say there is happiness in the world”--he said slowly, “but I

have not found it. Little messenger of peace, are you happy?”

The pathos of his rich musical voice, as he said the words “little

messenger of peace,” was indescribably touching. Strathlea found his

eyes suddenly growing dim with tears, and Irene’s voice trembled

greatly as she answered--

“No, not quite happy, dear friend;--we are none of us quite happy.”

“Not without love,”--said El-Râmi, speaking with sudden firmness and

decision--“Without love we are powerless. With it, we can compass all

things. Do not miss love; it is the clue to the great Secret,--the

only key to God’s mystery. But you know this already,--better than I

can tell you,--for I have missed it,--not lost it, you understand, but

only missed it. I shall find it again,--I hope, ... I pray I shall

find it again! God be with you, little messenger! Be happy while you

can!”

He extended his hand with a gesture which might have been one of

dismissal or benediction or both, and then sank into his former

attitude of resigned contemplation, while Irene Vassilius, too much

moved to speak, walked across the court between Strathlea and the

beautiful young “Brother Sebastian,” scarcely seeing the sunlight for

tears. Strathlea, too, was deeply touched;--so splendid a figure of a

man as El-Râmi he had seldom seen, and the ruin of brilliant

faculties in such a superb physique appeared to him the most

disastrous of calamities.

“Is he always like that?” he inquired of Féraz, with a backward

compassionate glance at the quiet figure sitting under the

cedar-boughs.

“Nearly always,” replied Féraz--“Sometimes he talks of birds and

flowers,--sometimes he takes a childish delight in the sunlight--he is

most happy, I think, when I take him alone into the chapel and play to

him on the organ. He is very peaceful, and never at any time violent.”

“And,” pursued Strathlea, hesitatingly, “who is, or who was the Lilith

he speaks of?”

“A woman he loved”--answered Féraz quietly--“and whom he loves still.

She lives--for him--in Heaven.”

No more questions were asked, and in another minute they arrived at

the open door of the little chapel, where Sir Frederick and Lady

Vaughan, attracted by the sound of music, were already awaiting them.

Irene briefly whispered a hurried explanation of El-Râmi’s condition,

and Lady Vaughan declared she would go and see him after the

vesper-service was over.

“You must not expect the usual sort of vespers”--said Féraz

then--“Our form is not the Roman Catholic.”

“Is it not?” queried Strathlea, surprised--“Then, may one ask what is

it?”

“Our own,”--was the brief response.

Three or four white-cowled, white-garmented figures now began to glide

into the chapel by a side-entrance, and Sir Frederick Vaughan asked

with some curiosity:

“Which is the Superior?”

“We have no Superior”--replied Féraz--“There is one Master of all the

Brotherhoods, but he has no fixed habitation, and he is not at present

in Europe. He visits the different branches of our Fraternity at

different intervals,--but he has not been here since my brother and I

came. In this house we are a sort of small Republic,--each man governs

himself, and we are all in perfect unity, as we all implicitly follow

the same fixed rules. Will you go into the chapel now? I must leave

you, as I have to sing the chorale.”

They obeyed his gesture, and went softly into the little sacred place,

now glowing with light, and redolent of sweet perfume, the natural

incense wafted on the air from the many flowers which were clustered

in every nook and corner. Seating themselves quietly on a wooden bench

at the end of the building, they watched the proceedings in mingled

wonder and reverence,--for such a religious service as this they had

assuredly never witnessed. There was no altar,--only an arched recess,

wherein stood a large, roughly-carved wooden cross, the base of which

was entirely surrounded with the rarest flowers. Through the

stained-glass window behind, the warm afternoon light streamed

gloriously,--it fell upon the wooden beams of the Sign of Salvation,

with a rose and purple radiance like that of newly-kindled fire,--and

as the few monks gathered together and knelt before it in silent

prayer, the scene was strangely impressive, though the surroundings

were so simple. And when, through the deep stillness an organ-chord

broke grandly like a wave from the sea, and the voice of Féraz, deep,

rich, and pathetic exclaimed as it were, in song,

“_Quare tristis es anima mea?_

_Quare conturbas me?_”

giving the reply in still sweeter accents,

“_Spera in Deo!_”

then Irene Vassilius sank on her knees and hid her face in her clasped

hands, her whole soul shaken by emotion and uplifted to heaven by the

magic of divinest harmony. Strathlea looked at her slight kneeling

figure and his heart beat passionately,--he bent his head too, close

beside hers, partly out of a devotional sense, partly perhaps to have

a nearer glimpse of the lovely fair hair that clustered in such

tempting little ripples and curls on the back of her slim white neck.

The monks, prostrating themselves before the Cross, murmured together

some indistinct orisons for a few minutes,--then came a pause,--and

once more the voice of Féraz rang out in soft warm vibrating notes of

melody;--the words he sang were his own, and fell distinctly on the

ears as roundly and perfectly as the chime of a true-toned bell--

O hear ye not the voice of the Belovëd?

Through golden seas of starry light it falls,

And like a summons in the night it calls,

Saying,--“Lost children of the Father’s House

Why do ye wander wilfully away?

Lo, I have sought ye sorrowing every day,--

And yet ye will not answer,--will not turn

To meet My love for which the angels yearn!

In all the causeless griefs wherewith your hearts are movëd

Have ye no time to hear the Voice of the Belovëd?”

O hearken to the Voice of the Belovëd!

Sweeter it is than music,--sweeter far

Than angel-anthems in a happy star!

O wandering children of the Father’s House,

Turn homeward ere the coming of the night,

Follow the pathway leading to the light!

So shall the sorrows of long exile cease

And tears be turned to smiles and pain to peace.

Lift up your hearts and let your faith be provëd;--

Answer, oh answer the Voice of the Belovëd!

Very simple stanzas these, and yet, sung by Féraz as only he could

sing, they carried in their very utterance a singularly passionate and

beautiful appeal. The fact of his singing the verses in English

implied a gracefully-intended compliment to his visitors,--and after

the last line “Answer, oh answer the voice of the Belovëd!” a deep

silence reigned in the little chapel. After some minutes this silence

was gently disturbed by what one might express as the gradual

_flowing-in_ of music,--a soft, persuasive ripple of sound that seemed

to wind in and out as though it had crept forth from the air as a

stream creeps through the grasses. And while that delicious harmony

rose and fell on the otherwise absolute stillness, Strathlea was

thrilled through every nerve of his being by the touch of a small soft

warm hand that stole tremblingly near his own as the music stole into

his heart;--a hand that after a little hesitation placed itself on his

in a wistfully submissive way that filled him with rapture and wonder.

He pressed the clinging dainty fingers in his own broad palm--

“Irene!” he whispered, as he bent his head lower in apparent

devotion--“Irene,--is this my answer?”

She looked up and gave him one fleeting glance through eyes that were

dim with tears; a faint smile quivered on her lips,--and then, she hid

her face again,--but--left her hand in his. And as the music, solemn

and sweet, surged around them both like a rolling wave, Strathlea knew

his cause was won, and for this favour of high Heaven, mentally

uttered a brief but passionately fervent “_Laus Deo_.” He had obtained

the best blessing that God can give--Love,--and he felt devoutly

certain that he had nothing more to ask for in this world or the next.

Love for him was enough,--as indeed it should be enough for us all if

only we will understand it in its highest sense. Shall we ever

understand?--or never?

XLIV.

The vespers over, the little party of English visitors passed out of

the chapel into the corridor. There they waited in silence, the

emotions of two of them at least, being sufficiently exalted to make

any attempt at conversation difficult. It was not however very long

before Féraz or “Brother Sebastian” joined them, and led them as

though by some involuntary instinct into the flower-grown quadrangle,

where two or three of the monks were now to be seen pacing up and down

in the strong red sunset-light with books open in their hands, pausing

ever and anon in their slow walk to speak to El-Râmi, who sat, as

before, alone under the boughs of the cedar-tree. One of the tame

doves that had previously been seen nestling at his feet, had now

taken up its position on his knee, and was complacently huddled down

there, allowing itself to be stroked, and uttering crooning sounds of

satisfaction as his hand passed caressingly over its folded white

wings. Féraz said very little as he escorted all his guests up to

within a yard or so of El-Râmi’s secluded seat,--but Lady Vaughan

paused irresolutely, gazing timidly and with something of awe at the

quiet reposeful figure, the drooped head, the delicate dark hand that

stroked the dove’s wings,--and as she looked and strove to realise

that this gentle, submissive, meditative, hermit-like man was indeed

the once proud and indomitable El-Râmi, a sudden trembling came over

her, and a rush of tears blinded her eyes.

“I cannot speak to him”--she whispered sobbingly to her husband--“He

looks so far away,--I am sure he is not here with us at all!”

Sir Frederick, distressed at his wife’s tears, murmured something

soothing,--but he too was rendered nervous by the situation and he

could find no words in which to make his feelings intelligible. So, as

before, Irene Vassilius took the initiative. Going close up to

El-Râmi, she with a quick yet graceful impulsiveness threw herself in

a half-kneeling attitude before him.

“El-Râmi!” she said.

He started, and stared down upon her amazedly,--yet was careful in all

his movements not to disturb the drowsing white dove upon his knee.

“Who calls me?” he demanded--“Who speaks?”

“I call you”--replied Irene, regardless how her quite unconventional

behaviour might affect the Vaughans as onlookers--“I ask you, dear

friend, to listen to me. I want to tell you that I am happy--very

happy,--and that before I go, you must give me your blessing.”

A pathetic pain and wonderment crossed El-Râmi’s features. He looked

helplessly at Féraz,--for though he did not recognise him as his

brother, he was accustomed to rely upon him for everything.

“This is very strange!” he faltered--“No one has ever asked me for a

blessing. Make her understand that I have no power at all to do any

good by so much as a word or a thought. I am a very poor and ignorant

man--quite at God’s mercy.”

Féraz bent above him with a soothing gesture.

“Dear El-Râmi,” he said--“this lady honours you. You will wish her

well ere she departs from us,--that is all she seeks.”

El-Râmi turned again towards Irene, who remained perfectly quiet in

the attitude she had assumed.

“I thought,”--he murmured slowly--“I thought you were an angel; it

seems you are a woman. Sometimes they are one and the same thing. Not

often, but sometimes. Women are wronged,--much wronged,--when God

endows them, they see farther than we do. But you must not honour

me,--I am not worthy to be honoured. A little child is much wiser than

I am. Of course I must wish you well--I could not do otherwise. You

see this poor bird,”--and he again stroked the dove which now dozed

peacefully--“I wish it well also. It has its mate and its hole in the

dove-cote, and numberless other little joys,--I would have it always

happy,--and ... so--I would have you always happy too. And,--most

assuredly, if you desire it, I will say--‘God bless you!’”

Here he seemed to collect his thoughts with some effort,--his dark

brows contracted perplexedly,--then, after a minute, his expression

brightened, and, as if he had just remembered something, he carefully

and with almost trembling reverence, made the sign of the cross above

Irene’s drooping head. She gently caught the hovering hand and kissed

it. He smiled placidly, like a child who is caressed.

“You are very good to me”--he said--“I am quite sure you are an angel.

And being so, you need no blessing--God knows His own, and always

claims them ... in the end.”

He closed his eyes languidly then and seemed fatigued,--his hand still

mechanically stroked the dove’s wings. They left him so, moving away

from him with hushed and cautious steps. He had not noticed Sir

Frederick or Lady Vaughan,--and they were almost glad of this, as they

were themselves entirely disinclined to speak. To see so great a wreck

of a once brilliant intellect was a painful spectacle to good-natured

Sir Frederick,--while on Lady Vaughan it had the effect of a severe

nervous shock. She thought she would have been better able to bear the

sight of a distracted and howling maniac, than the solemn pitifulness

of that silent submission, that grave patience of a physically strong

man transformed, as it were, into a child. They walked round the

court, Féraz gathering as he went bouquets of roses and jessamine and

passiflora for the two ladies.

“He seems comfortable and happy”--Sir Frederick ventured to remark at

last.

“He is, perfectly so”--rejoined Féraz. “It is very rarely that he is

depressed or uneasy. He may live on thus till he is quite old, they

tell me,--his physical health is exceptionally good.”

“And you will always stay with him?” said Irene.

“Can you ask, Madame!” and Féraz smiled--“It is my one joy to serve

him. I grieve sometimes that he does not know me really, who I

am,--but I have a secret feeling that one day that part of the cloud

will lift, and he _will_ know. For the rest he is pleased and soothed

to have me near him,--that is all I desire. He did everything for me

once,--it is fitting I should do everything for him now. God is

good,--and in His measure of affliction there is always a great

sweetness.”

“Surely you do not think it well for your brother to have lost the

control of his brilliant intellectual faculties?” asked Sir Frederick,

surprised.

“I think everything well that God designs”--answered Féraz gently,

now giving the flowers he had gathered, to Irene and Lady Vaughan, and

looking, as he stood in his white robes against a background of rosy

sunset-light, like a glorified young saint in a picture,--“El-Râmi’s

intellectual faculties were far too brilliant, too keen, too

dominant,--his great force and supremacy of will too absolute. With

such powers as he had he would have ruled this world, and lost the

next. That is, he would have gained the Shadow and missed the

Substance. No, no--it is best as it is. ‘Except ye become as little

children, ye shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven!’ That is a true

saying. In the Valley of Humiliation the birds of paradise sing, and

in El-Râmi’s earth-darkness there are gleams of the Light Divine. I

am content,--and so, I firmly and devoutly believe, is he.”

With this, and a few more parting words, the visitors now prepared to

take their leave. Suddenly Irene Vassilius perceived an exquisite rose

hanging down among the vines that clambered about the walls of the

little monastery;--a rose pure white in its outer petals but tenderly

tinted with a pale blush pink towards its centre. Acting on her own

impulsive idea, she gathered it, and hastened back alone across the

quadrangle to where El-Râmi sat absorbed and lost in his own drowsy

dreams.

“Good-bye, dear friend,--good-bye!” she said softly, and held the

fragrant beautiful bud towards him.

He opened his sad dark eyes and smiled,--then extended his hand and

took the flower.

“I thank you, little messenger of peace!” he said--“It is a rose from

Heaven,--it is the Soul of Lilith!”

[FINIS]

FOOTNOTES.

[1]

From _The Natural Law of Miracles_, written in Arabic 400 B.C.

[2]

This remarkable passage on the admitted effects of hypnotism as

practised by the priests of ancient Egypt will be found in an old

history of the building of the Pyramids entitled--“The Egyptian

Account of the Pyramids”--Written in the Arabic by Murtadi the son of

Gaphiphus--date about 1400.

[3]

Copied verbatim from the current Press.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES.

The edition published by Grosset & Dunlap (NY, 1892) was referenced

for most of the fixes listed below.

The above-mentioned edition’s cover was used for this ebook.

Alterations to the text:

Add TOC.

Assorted punctuation fixes.

Relabel footnote markers, collect footnotes at end of text, and add

an entry to the TOC.

[Chapter I]

Change “complex character of the _pyschological_ Dane” to

_psychological_.

[Chapter II]

“in honour of some _Serene_ and _Exalted_ foreign potentate” to

_serene_ and _exalted_.

[Chapter III]

“_El Râmi_! At last! How late you are!” to _El-Râmi_.

[Chapter VIII]

“_Férez_ gazed at her compassionately and” to _Féraz_.

[Chapter X]

“tell me, is there _No_ answer?” to _no_.

[Chapter XVII]

“The conqueror shall be conquered, El-Râmi _Zâranos_” to _Zarânos_.

[Chapter XXVIII]

(like those of Féraz’s ideal ladye-love, were) Surround _ideal

ladye-love_ with quotation marks.

[Chapter XXXII]

“that there was _somethimg_ in the silent” to _something_.

[Chapter XXXV]

“lines with strange _eagernes sand_ fervour” to _eagerness and_.

“He will, and as He will! _Good night_!” to _Good-night_.

[End of Text]