Over thine head, and thou mayst mingle yet
The bitter and the sweet, nor quite forget,
Nor quite remember, till these things shall seem
The wavering memory of a lovely dream."

William Morris.

He left her alone then, with her despair, and as the slow hours
dragged by, Psyche, as she awaited the dawn, felt that in her heart no
sun could ever rise again. When day came at last, she felt she could
no longer endure to stay in the palace where everything spoke to her
of the infinite tenderness of a lost love. Through the night a storm
had raged, and even with the day there came no calm. And Psyche, weary
and chill, wandered away from the place of her happiness, onward and
ever on, until she stood on the bank of a swift-flowing river. For a
little she stayed her steps and listened to the sound of its wash
against the rocks and tree roots as it hurried past, and to her as she
waited came the thought that here had she found a means by which to
end her woe.

"I have lost my Love," she moaned. "What is Life to me any longer!
Come to me then, O Death!"

So then she sprang into the wan water, hoping that very swiftly it
might bear her grief-worn soul down to the shades. But the river bore
her up and carried her to its shallows in a fair meadow where Pan
himself sat on the bank and merrily dabbled his feet in the flowing
water. And when Psyche, shamed and wet, looked at him with sad eyes,
the god spoke to her gently and chid her for her folly. She was too
young and much too fair to try to end her life so rudely, he said. The
river gods would never be so unkind as to drive so beautiful a maiden
in rough haste down to the Cocytus valley.

"Thou must dree thy weird like all other daughters of men, fair
Psyche," he said. "He or she who fain would lose their lives, are ever
held longest in life. Only when the gods will it shall thy days on
earth be done."

And Psyche, knowing that in truth the gods had spared her to endure
more sorrow, looked in his face with a very piteous gaze, and wandered
on. As she wandered, she found that her feet had led her near the
place where her two sisters dwelt.

"I shall tell them of the evil they have wrought," she thought.
"Surely they must sorrow when they know that by their cruel words they
stole my faith from me and robbed me of my Love and of my happiness."

Gladly the two women saw the stricken form of Psyche and looked at her
face, all marred by grief. Well, indee