It seemed perfectly human, and yet it was
so ethereal that it had the appearance of a spirit of the other world.
As he looked at the girl with a wondering gaze, a smile lit up her
beautiful features, and he then discovered to his great joy that she
was none other than Willow, his lost love whom he had despaired of ever
seeing again.

With her face wreathed in smiles, she sat down beside him and said in a
timid, modest way:--"I am here to-night in response to the great love
which has never faltered since the day I died. That is the magnet
which has had the power of drawing me from the Land of Shadows. I felt
it there, and many speak about it in that sunless country. Even
Yam-lo, the lord of the spirits of that dreary world, has been moved by
your unchanging devotion; so much so that he has given me permission to
come and see you, in order that I might tell you how deeply my heart is
moved by the profound affection that you have exhibited for me all
these months during which you never had any expectation of its being
returned."

For many months this sweet intercourse between Chan and his beloved
Willow was carried on, and no one in the whole monastery knew anything
of it. The interviews always took place about midnight, and Willow,
who seemed to pass with freedom through closed doors or the stoutest
walls, invariably vanished during the small hours of the morning.

One evening whilst they were conversing on topics agreeable to them
both, Willow unburdened her heart to Chan, and told him how unhappy she
was in the world of spirits.

"You know," she said, "that before I died I was not married, and so I
am only a wandering spirit with no place where I can rest, and no
friends to whom I can betake myself. I travel here and there and
everywhere, feeling that no one cares for me, and that there are no
ties to bind me to any particular place or thing. For a young girl
like me, this is a very sad and sorrowful state of things.

"There is another thing that adds to my sorrow in the Land of Shadows,"
she went on to say, with a mournful look on her lovely countenance. "I
was very fond of hunting when I was in my father's home, and many a
wild animal was slain in the hunting expeditions in which I took an
active part. This has all told against me in the world in which I am
now living, and for the share I took in destroying life I have to
suffer by many pains and penalties which are hard for me to endure.

"My sin has