ers I shall only bring you
suffering. I am not for mortal love. True, I cannot see beyond, but
Fear meets me on the threshold. The hour I gave myself to you would
bring you an evil I dimly realise. I cannot foretell, and I cannot
avert it; but it is there. It lurks like a hidden foe where our lives
should join... No, no!--do not tempt me. Happiness is not for me, as
we count it on the earth plane."

"And in the next I may lose you altogether. Oh listen--listen, and let
the woman defy the priestess. Give me your love, and, even with Death
as its bridal gift I shall receive it as the deepest joy of earth."

"There," she said sadly, "speaks the mortal. Passion sways your senses.
You too will lose your powers--and for what?--a few brief years of
joy--a longer darkness--then the old weary round--the old sad effort to
climb the long stairway from the bottom rung that once you proudly
spurned. It was not this that Channa taught us in the sweet peace of
our youth--it was not this for which our souls thirsted, and to which
our faces were set."

"Channa is dead, and to the dead all is peace. Even he said that Life's
one good gift was Love."

"True, but not selfish love. `The feet of the soul must be washed in
the blood of the heart.' Love to all humanity--to the poor--the sad--
the suffering. Love, even to the Fate that gives us sorrow and
misfortune. Love to the eternal and immutable. Love for all that is
purest and best in each life with which we mingle. Such a love is not
sensual--not earthly. It gives without necessity of return; it is the
soul's devotion, not the heart's impulse. But you are not content with
loving me, you claim mine in return, and so far as I have lost or you
have gained a firmer foothold since last we met, so far you can compel
my lower nature to answer yours. We have loved before, and unhappy was
our fate. Once more we meet, and your cry is still for me. And I--"

She ceased; her arms fell to her side. Her face, lovely beyond all mere
mortal loveliness, looked back to his yearning, passionate gaze. Had
she been temptress, devil, saint, there could have been but one answer
from the throbbing heart and leaping pulse of manhood. He caught her to
his heart, and his lips drank from hers the sweetness that only earthly
passion drains from earthly love.

She did not resist. She lay there like a white lily in the moonlight,
but her lips were cold as marble and her eyes held the mu