eckoning
him to come. She took Gnulemah's place, beckoning, making a hateful
parody of Gnulemah's expression and gestures. Could a devil take the
consecrated place of angels? or was the angel a worse devil in
disguise? In the same day, to him the same man, could two such voices
speak,--such faces look? And could the germ of Godhead abide in a soul
liable to the irony of such vicarious solicitation?

Speech or motion was still denied him. His priestess, strengthened by
religious passion, was bold to touch with hers his divine hand, on the
finger of which demoniacally glittered the murder-token. The hand was
so cold and lax that even the smooth warmth of her soft fingers failed
to put life in it.

"You have taken Hiero to yourself,--take me also! be my God as well as
his, for I shall be alone now he is gone. This ring which he always
wore--"

Balder roughly snatched back his hand.

"Hiero's ring?"

"Why do you look so?--is it not a sign to me from him?"

"Hiero's ring?--tell me, Gnulemah, is this Hiero's ring?--Stop--stand
up! No--call me Satan!--Hiero's ring!"

"Where is Hiero, then?" demanded Gnulemah, rising and dilating. "You
wear his ring,--what have you done with him?--Is there no God?"

The words came riding on the waves of deep-drawn breaths, for her soul
was in a tumult. Her life had thus far been like a quiet sequestered
pool, reflecting only the sky, and the ferns and flowers that bent
above its margin; ignorant, moreover, of its own depth and nature.
Now, invaded by storm, God and nature seemed swept away and lost, and
a terror of loneliness darkened over it.

"Is there no Balder?" reiterated Gnulemah. But all at once the
fierceness in her eyes melted, as lightning is followed by summer
rain. She came so near,--he standing dulled with horror of his
discovery,--came so near that her breath touched him, and he could
hear the faint rustling of the white byssus on her bosom, and the soft
tinkle of the broad pendants that glowed against her black hair; and
could see how profoundly real her beauty was. Mighty and beneficent
must be the force or the law which could combine the rude elements
into such a form of life as this!

"Let me live for you and serve you! Though the world has no Balder,
may not I have mine? You shall be everything to me! Without you I
cannot be; but I want no other God if I have my Balder!"

This was another matter! Nevertheless,--so subtle is the boundary
between love human and d