ay me for wider powers, for a more vast dominion; that as
though they were but yonder fallen door of wood and iron, I should break
for thee the bars of Hades, and like the Eurydice of old fable draw thee
living down the steeps of Death, or throne thee midst the fires of the
furthest sun to watch its subject worlds at play.

"Or I thought that thou wouldst bid me reveal what no woman ever told,
the bitter, naked truth--all my sins and sorrows, all the wandering
fancies of my fickle thought; even what thou knowest not and perchance
ne'er shalt know, _who I am and whence I came_, and how to thy charmed
eyes I seemed to change from foul to fair, and what is the purpose of
my love for thee, and what the meaning of that tale of an angry
goddess--who never was except in dreams.

"I thought--nay, no matter what I thought, save that thou wert far other
than thou art, my Leo, and in so high a moment that thou wouldst seek to
pass the mystic gates my glory can throw wide and with me tread an air
supernal to the hidden heart of things. Yet thy prayer is but the same
that the whole world whispers beneath the silent moon, in the palace and
the cottage, among the snows and on the burning desert's waste. 'Oh! my
love, thy lips, thy lips. Oh! my love, be mine, now, now, beneath the
moon, beneath the moon!'

"Leo, I thought better, higher, of thee."

"Mayhap, Ayesha, thou wouldest have thought worse of me had I been
content with thy suns and constellations and spiritual gifts and
dominations that I neither desire nor understand.

"If I had said to thee: Be thou my angel, not my wife; divide the ocean
that I may walk its bed; pierce the firmament and show me how grow the
stars; tell me the origins of being and of death and instruct me in
their issues; give up the races of mankind to my sword, and the wealth
of all the earth to fill my treasuries. Teach me also how to drive
the hurricane as thou canst do, and to bend the laws of nature to my
purpose: on earth make me half a god--as thou art.

"But Ayesha, I am no god; I am a man, and as a man I seek the woman whom
I love. Oh! divest thyself of all these wrappings of thy power--that
power which strews thy path with dead and keeps me apart from thee. If
only for one short night forget the ambition that gnaws unceasingly at
thy soul; I say forget thy greatness and be a woman and--my wife."

She made no answer, only looked at him and shook her head, causing her
glorious hair to ripple l