So it went for a while, till presently the Wanderer looked up, and lo!
upon the pylon's brow stood the woman's self, and at her coming all were
once more silent. She was tall and straight, clad in clinging white,
but on her breast there glowed a blood-red ruby stone, fashioned like
a star, and from it fell red drops that stained for one moment the
whiteness of her robes, and then the robe was white again. Her golden
hair was tossed this way and that, and shone in the sunlight, her arms
and neck were bare, and she held one hand before her eyes as though to
hide the brightness of her beauty. For, indeed, she could not be called
beautiful but Beauty itself.

And they who had not loved saw in her that first love whom no man has
ever won, and they who had loved saw that first love whom every man has
lost. And all about her rolled a glory--like the glory of the dying day.
Sweetly she sang a song of promise, and her voice was the voice of each
man's desire, and the heart of the Wanderer thrilled in answer to it as
thrills a harp smitten by a cunning hand; and thus she sang:

Whom hast thou longed for most,
True love of mine?
Whom hast thou loved and lost?
Lo, she is thine!

She that another wed
Breaks from her vow;
She that hath long been dead
Wakes for thee now.

Dreams haunt the hapless bed,
Ghosts haunt the night,
Life crowns her living head,
Love and Delight.

Nay, not a dream nor ghost,
Nay, but Divine,
She that was loved and lost
Waits to be thine!

She ceased, and a moan of desire went up from all who heard.

Then the Wanderer saw that those beside him tore at the bandages about
their brows and rent them loose. Only the priests who lay upon the
ground stirred not, though they also moaned.

And now again she sang, still holding her hand before her face:

Ye that seek me, ye that sue me,
Ye that flock beneath my tower,
Ye would win me, would undo me,
I must perish in an hour,
Dead before the Love that slew me, clasped the
Bride and crushed the flower.

Hear the word and mark the warning,
Beauty lives but in your sight,
Beauty fades from all men's scorning
In the watches of the night,
Beauty wanes before the morning, and
Love dies in his delight.

She ceased, and once more there was silence. Then suddenly she bent
fo