hair, was gone.

"Allan, I awoke from my sleep and a great trouble fell upon me, for I
who had never loved before now was rent with a rage of love and for this
man who till that moment had been naught to me but as some beauteous
image of gold and ivory. I longed for him, my heart was racked with
jealousy because of the Egyptian who favoured him, an eating flame
possessed my breast. I grew mad. There in the shrine of Isis the divine
I cast myself upon my knees and cried to Aphrodite to return and give me
him I sought, for whose sake I would renounce all else, even if I must
pour my wisdom into a beauteous, empty cup. Yes, thus I prayed and lay
upon the ground and wept until, outworn, once more sleep fell upon me.

"Now in the darkness of the holy place once more there came a dream or
vision, since before me in her glory stood the goddess Isis crowned
with the crescent of the young moon and holding in her hand the jewelled
_sistrum_ that is her symbol, from which came music like to the melody
of distant bells. She gazed at me and in her great eyes were scorn and
anger.

"'O Ayesha, Daughter of Wisdom,' she said in a solemn voice, 'whom I,
Isis, had come to look upon rather as a child than a servant, since in
none other of my priestesses was such greatness to be found, and whom
in a day to be I had purposed to raise to the very steps of my heavenly
throne, thou hast broken thine oath and, forsaking me, hast worshipped
false Aphrodite of the Greeks who is mine enemy. Yea, in the eternal war
between the spirit and the flesh, thou hast chosen the part of flesh.
Therefore I hate thee and add my doom to that which Aphrodite laid upon
thee, which, hadst thou prayed to me and not to her, I would have lifted
from thy heart.

"'Hearken! The Grecian whom thou hast chosen, by Aphrodite's will, thou
shalt love as the Pathian said. More, thy love shall bring his blood
upon thy hands, nor mayest thou follow him to the grave. For I will show
thee the Source of Life and thou shalt drink of it to make thyself more
fair even than thou art and thus outpace thy rival, and when thy lover
is dead, in a desolate place thou shalt wait in grief and solitude till
he is born again and find thee there.

"'Yet shall this be but the beginning of thy sorrows, since through all
time thou shalt pursue thy fate till at length thou canst draw up this
man to the height on which thine own soul stands by the ropes of love
and loss and suffering. Moreover