deeper darkness. Never before in any building had
Isaacson felt the call to advance so strongly as he felt it now. And yet
he lingered. He was forced to linger by the perfect beauty of form which
met him in this temple. Never before had any creation of man so
absolutely satisfied all the secret demands of his brain and of his
soul. He was inundated with a peace that praised, with a calm that loved
and adored. This temple built for adoration created within him the need
to adore. The perfection of its form was like a perfect prayer offered
spontaneously to Him who created in man the power to create.

But though he lingered, and though he was strangely at peace, the
darkness called him onward, as the desert calls the nomad who is
travelling in it alone.

He was drawn by the innermost darkness of the sanctuary, the core of
this house divine of the Hidden One. And he went on between the columns,
and up the delicate stone approaches; and though he was always drawing
near to a deeper darkness, and natural man is repelled by darkness
rather than enticed by it, he felt as if he were approaching something
very beautiful, something even divine, something for which, all
unconsciously, he had long been waiting and softly hoping. For the spell
of the dead architect was upon him, and the Holy of Holies lay
beyond--that chamber with narrow walls and blue roof, which contains an
altar and shrine of granite, where once no doubt stood the statue of
Horus, the God of the Sun.

Isaacson expected to find in this sanctuary the representation of the
Being to whom this noble house had been raised. It seemed to him that in
this last mystery of beauty and darkness the God Himself must dwell. And
he came into it softly, with calm but watchful eyes.

By the shrine, just before it, there stood a white figure. As Isaacson
entered it moved, as if disturbed or even startled. A dress rustled.

Isaacson drew back. A chill ran through his nerves. He had been so deep
in contemplation, his mind had been drawn away so far from the modern
world, that this apparition of a woman, doubtless like himself a
tourist, gave him one of the most unpleasant shocks he had ever endured.
And in a moment he felt as if his sudden appearance had given an equally
disagreeable shock to the woman. Looking in the darkness unnaturally
tall, she stood quite still for an instant after her first abrupt
movement, then, with an air of decision that was forcible, she came
towards h