ly, her pale face drawing away from his
breast.

"Sherah, why didst thou come here?" he said. "Thou! thou!"

"To buy back my soul, Ambroise. And this is the last day of the year
that I have spent here. Oh, why, why didst thou come? To-morrow all
should have been well!"

"To buy back thy soul--thou didst no wrong!" But at that moment their
eyes drew close, and changed, and he understood.

"For me--for me!" he whispered.

"Nay, for me!" she replied.

Then they noticed that the Purple Mat on which they knelt was red under
their knees, and a goodly light shone through the Tent, not of the day
or night. And as they looked amazed, the curtain of the Tent drew open,
and one entered, clothed in red from head to foot; and they knew him to
be the Scarlet Hunter, the lover of the lost, the Keeper of the Kimash
Hills.

Looking at them steadfastly he said to Sherah: "Thou has prevailed.
To-night, at the setting of the sun, an old man died in Syria who
uttered thy name as in a dream when he passed. The soul of Ambroise hath
been bought back by thee."

Then he spoke to Ambroise. "Because thy spirit was willing, and for the
woman's sake thou shalt have peace; but this year which she has spent
for thee shall be taken from thy life, and added to hers. Come, and I
will start ye on the swift trail to your own country, and ye shall come
here no more."

As they rose, obeying him, they saw that the red of the Mat had gone a
perfect white, and they knew not what to think, for they had acted after
the manner of the heathen; but that night, as they travelled with joy
towards that Inn called Home, down at the Fort, a preacher with rude
noise cried to those who would hear him: "Though your sins be as scarlet
they shall become whiter than snow."

THERE WAS A LITTLE CITY

It lay between the mountains and the sea, and a river ran down past it,
carrying its good and ill news to a pacific shore, and out upon soft
winds, travelling lazily to the scarlet east. All white and a tempered
red, it nestled in a valley with other valleys on lower steppes, which
seemed as if built by the gods, that they might travel easily from the
white-topped mountains, Margath, Shaknon, and the rest, to wash their
feet in the sea. In the summer a hot but gracious mistiness softened the
green of the valleys, the varying colours of the hills, the blue of the
river, the sharp outlines of the cliffs. Along the high shelf of the
mountain, muletrains travelled