ve heaven and all the angels for thine arms!' And he will take me in
his arms, and I shall fear nothing any more. O day, come swiftly!"

Along the beach she hastened, light-footed, and came to the lumber-pile,
with no more than a glance for the Roman soldier who lay upon it, his
duty done. And so, behind the lumber-pile, with but a strip of gray sand
between his bed and the broad river, she found him, with the dawn-light
upon his face.

As once before she had gone to him and knelt beside him as he slept, so
she thought to go to him again. But this time she would not fear to wake
him, for he, her lord, had called her, and her delight was to obey. She
had come to yield herself his, body and soul forever, and in her face
the bridal joy outshone the bridal terror. She would do this and that;
thought to play with her joy to taste the sweetness of its savor; but
suddenly all her thought was lost in the flood of love triumphant which
rose to overwhelm her. She ran forward, her arms outflung to him,
crying:

"Beloved, wake, for I am come to thee! All my soul is a flame of fire,
and the fire is love which blindeth me to all in earth and heaven save
only thee. Wilt thou not wake and take me?" On her knees she threw
herself beside him.

But he did not move, nor did he speak in answer.

And even in the moment of her exaltation, Eldris understood. Her words
broke; an instant she knelt with arms outstretched above him; she ceased
to breathe, and her face froze into lines of stone. But suddenly she
gave a cry, loud and sharp, and her hands fell upon him. Her eyes awoke
into living terror; with desperate fingers she strove to turn his face
further to the light. At the weight of him she shook and shuddered; she
had felt that horrible dead weight before, that sullen settling into
itself of his bulk as her hands left it. In the gray light of the slow
dawning she turned his face toward her, gray, and smiling, and still.
She looked down upon him and put her hands to her throat.

"I am glad, ay, glad, that thy mouth is not open and screaming at me!"
she said aloud, in a dead voice.

The sense of her words smote her, and she closed her eyes with a
long-drawn whispering moan.

Again she looked at him, scarcely believing; and once more the flood
overwhelmed her. She wrung her hands and brought them down before her
face.

"Oh, God, is this Thy punishment for that I said my God was love? Very
well--punish Thou me, then--what canst Thou