'll sing thee a nuptial chant of love such as mortal poet has not
written nor have mortal lovers heard.

"Come, Holly, do now thy part and give this maiden to this man."

Like one in a dream I obeyed her and took Ayesha's outstretched hand
and Leo's. As I held them thus, I tell the truth:--it was as though some
fire rushed through my veins from her to him, shaking and shattering me
with swift waves of burning and unearthly Bliss. With the fire too came
glorious visions and sounds of mighty music, and a sense as though my
brain, filled with over-flowing life, must burst asunder beneath its
weight.

I joined their hands; I know not how; I blessed them, I know not in what
words. Then I reeled back against the wall and watched.

This is what I saw.

With an abandonment and a passion so splendid and intense that it seemed
more than human, with a murmured cry of "Husband!" Ayesha cast her arms
about her lover's neck and drawing down his head to hers so that the
gold hair was mingled with her raven locks, she kissed him on the lips.

Thus they clung a little while, and as they clung the gentle diadem
of light from her brow spread to his brow also, and through the white
wrappings of her robe became visible her perfect shape shining with
faint fire. With a little happy laugh she left him, saying,

"Thus, Leo Vincey, oh! thus for the second time do I give myself to
thee, and with this flesh and spirit all I swore to thee, there in the
dim Caves of Kor and here in the palace of Kaloon. Know thou this, come
what may, never, never more shall we be separate who are ordained one.
Whilst thou livest I live at thy side, and when thou diest, if die thy
must, I'll follow thee through worlds and firmaments, nor shall all the
doors of heaven or hell avail against my love. Where thou goest, thither
I will go. When thou sleepest, with thee will I sleep and it is my voice
that thou shalt hear murmuring through the dreams of life and death; my
voice that shall summon thee to awaken in the last hour of everlasting
dawn, when all this night of misery hath furled her wings for aye.

"Listen now while I sing to thee and hear that song aright, for in its
melody at length thou shalt learn the truth, which unwed I might not
tell to thee. Thou shalt learn who and what _I_ am, and who and what
_thou_ art, and of the high purposes of our love, and this dead woman's
hate, and of all that I have hid from thee in veiled, bewildering words
and vision