and a spell that bound them together there,
among the flowers, the drooping palms, the graceful tropic plants and
the shadowy leaves. And still the day rose higher, but still the lamps
burned on, fed by the silent, mysterious current that never tires,
blending a real light with an unreal one, an emblem of Unorna's self,
mixing and blending, too, with a self not hers.

"And the sun is risen, indeed," she added presently.

"Am I the sun, dear?" he asked, foretasting the delight of listening to
her simple answer.

"You are the sun, beloved, and when you shine, my eyes can see nothing
else in heaven."

"And what are you yourself--Beatrice--no, Unorna--is that the name you
chose? It is so hard to remember anything when I look at you."

"Beatrice--Unorna--anything," came the answer, softly murmuring.
"Anything, dear, any name, any face, any voice, if only I am I, and you
are you, and we two love! Both, neither, anything--do the blessed souls
in Paradise know their own names?"

"You are right--what does it matter? Why should you need a name at all,
since I have you with me always? It was well once--it served me when I
prayed for you--and it served to tell me that my heart was gold while
you were there, as the goldsmith's mark upon his jewel stamps the pure
metal, that all men may know it."

"You need no sign like that to show me what you are," said she, with a
long glance.

"Nor I to tell me you are in my heart," he answered. "It was a foolish
speech. Would you have me wise now?"

"If wisdom is love--yes. If not----" She laughed softly.

"Then folly?"

"Then folly, madness, anything--so that this last, as last it must, or I
shall die!"

"And why should it not last? Is there any reason, in earth or Heaven,
why we two should part? If there is--I will make that reason itself
folly, and madness, and unreason. Dear, do not speak of this not
lasting. Die, you say? Worse, far worse; as much as eternal death is
worse than bodily dying. Last? Does any one know what for ever means,
if we do not? Die, we must, in these dying bodies of ours, but part--no.
Love has burned the cruel sense out of that word, and bleached its
blackness white. We wounded the devil, parting, with one kiss, we killed
him with the next--this buries him--ah, love, how sweet----"

There was neither resistance nor the thought of resisting. Their lips
met and were withdrawn only that their eyes might drink again the
draught the lips had tasted, long