the room seemed full of lamp-shadows, sometimes of cloudy forms. The
princess lay on the settle by the wall, and seemed never to have moved
hand or foot. It was a fearsome waiting.

When Mara returned, she drew the settle with Lilith upon it to the
middle of the room, then sat down opposite me, at the other side of the
hearth. Between us burned a small fire.

Something terrible was on its way! The cloudy presences flickered and
shook. A silvery creature like a slowworm came crawling out from among
them, slowly crossed the clay floor, and crept into the fire. We sat
motionless. The something came nearer.

But the hours passed, midnight drew nigh, and there was no change. The
night was very still. Not a sound broke the silence, not a rustle from
the fire, not a crack from board or beam. Now and again I felt a sort of
heave, but whether in the earth or in the air or in the waters under the
earth, whether in my own body or in my soul--whether it was anywhere,
I could not tell. A dread sense of judgment was upon me. But I was not
afraid, for I had ceased to care for aught save the thing that must be
done.

Suddenly it was midnight. The muffled woman rose, turned toward the
settle, and slowly unwound the long swathes that hid her face: they
dropped on the ground, and she stepped over them. The feet of the
princess were toward the hearth; Mara went to her head, and turning,
stood behind it. Then I saw her face. It was lovely beyond speech--white
and sad, heart-and-soul sad, but not unhappy, and I knew it never could
be unhappy. Great tears were running down her cheeks: she wiped them
away with her robe; her countenance grew very still, and she wept no
more. But for the pity in every line of her expression, she would have
seemed severe. She laid her hand on the head of the princess--on the
hair that grew low on the forehead, and stooping, breathed on the sallow
brow. The body shuddered.

"Will you turn away from the wicked things you have been doing so long?"
said Mara gently.

The princess did not answer. Mara put the question again, in the same
soft, inviting tone.

Still there was no sign of hearing. She spoke the words a third time.

Then the seeming corpse opened its mouth and answered, its words
appearing to frame themselves of something else than sound.--I cannot
shape the thing further: sounds they were not, yet they were words to
me.

"I will not," she said. "I will be myself and not another!"

"Alas, you