s never woman like to her, nor would be
again.

And yet--scarce ten days had changed her, had so altered and disturbed
the pure elements of her wondrous nature that she had lied to herself
and lied to her lover the very lie of lies--for what? To wear a piece of
purple of a richer dye than other women wore, to bind her hair with a
bit of gold, to be called a queen--a queen forsooth! when she had been
from her birth up the sovereign queen of all created women!

The very lie of lies! Was there ever such a monstrous lie since the
world first learned the untruths of the serpent's wisdom? Had she not
sworn and promised, by the holiness of her God, to love Zoroaster for
ever? For ever. O word, that had meant heaven, and now meant hell!--that
had meant joy without any end and peace and all love!--that meant now
only pain eternal, and sorrow, and gnawing torment of a wound that would
never heal! O Death, that yesterday would have seemed Life for her! O
Life, that to-day, by her, was made the Death of deaths!

Emptiness of emptiness--the whole world one hollow cavern of
vanity--lifeless and lightless, where the ghosts of the sorrows of men
moan dismally, and the shadows of men's griefs scream out their wild
agony upon the ghastly darkness! Night, through which no dawn shall
ever gleam, fleet and fair, to touch with rosy fingers the eyes of a
dead world and give them sight! Winter, of unearthly cold, that through
all the revolving ages of untiring time, shall never see the face of
another spring, nor feel its icy veins thawing with the pulses of a
forgotten life, quickened from within with the thrilling hope of a new
and glorious birth!

Far out upon the southern plain Zoroaster lay upon the dew-wet ground
and gazed up into the measureless depths of heaven, where the stars
shone out like myriads of jewels set in the dark mantle of night!

Gradually, as he lay, the tempest of his heart subsided, and the calm of
the vast solitude descended upon him, even as the dew had descended upon
the earth. His temples ceased to throb with the wild pulse that sent
lightnings through his brain at every beat, and from the intensity of
his sorrow, his soul seemed to float upwards to those cool depths of the
outer firmament where no sorrow is. His eyes grew glassy and fixed, and
his body rigid in the night-dews; and his spirit, soaring beyond the
power of earthly forces to weigh down its flight, rose to that lofty
sphere where the morning and t