the strange
duality tended to melt back again into unity.

Balder's attack at length yielded, and a drowsy consciousness
returned, memory and reason being still partly in abeyance. His heavy,
half-closed eyes rested on darkness. A crooning sound was in his
ear,--a nursery lullaby, wordless but soothing. Where was he? Had he
been ill? Was he in his cradle at home? Was Salome sitting by to watch
him and give him his medicine? Yes, very ill he was, but would be
better in the morning; and meanwhile he would be a good boy, and not
cry and make a fuss and trouble Salome.

"Nurse,--Sal!--I say, Sal!"

Salome bent over him as of old.

"Had such a funny dream, Sal! dreamt I was grown up, and--killed a
man! What makes you shake so, Sal? it wasn't true, you know! And I'm
going to be a good boy and go to sleep. Good night! give a kiss from
me--to--my--little--"

So sinks he into slumber, profound as ever wooed his childhood; his
head pillowed in Salome's lap, his funny dream forgotten.

XXI.

WE PICK UP ANOTHER THREAD.

Darkness and silence reigned in the conservatory; the group of the
sleeping man and attendant woman was lost in the warm gloom, and
scarcely a motion--the low drawing of a breath--told of their
presence.

A great gray owl, which had passed the daylight in some obscure
corner, launched darkling forth on the air and winged hither and
thither,--once or twice fanning the sleeper's face with silent
pinions. The crocodile lazily edged off the stone, plumped quietly
into the water, and clambered up the hither margin of the pool, there
coming to another long pause. A snail, making a night-journey across
the floor, found in its path a diamond, sparkling with a light of its
own. The snail extended a cool cautious tentacle,--recoiled it
fastidiously and shaped a new course. A broad petal from a tall
flowering-shrub dropped wavering down, and seemed about to light on
Balder's forehead; but, swerving at the last moment, came to rest on
the scaly head of the crocodile. The night waited and listened, as
though for something to happen,--for some one to appear! Salome, too,
was waiting for some one;--was it for the dead?

Meantime, pictures from the past glimmered through her memory. When,
in our magic mirror, we saw her struck down by the hand of her lover,
she was far from being the repulsive object she is now. Indeed, but
for that chance word let fall yesterday, about her having been badly
burnt, we might b