feared his bronzing light,
But in his radiance back around me thrown
By fulgent mirrors tempering his might;
Thus bathing in a moon-bath not too bright,
My skin I tinted slow to ivory tone.

"But now, all round was dark, dark all within!
My eyes not even gave out a phantom-flash;
My fingers sank in pulp through pulpy skin;
My body lay death-weltered in a mash
Of slimy horrors----"

With a fearsome yell, her clammy fur staring in clumps, her tail thick
as a cable, her eyes flashing green as a chrysoprase, her distended
claws entangling themselves so that she floundered across the carpet, a
huge white cat rushed from somewhere, and made for the chimney. Quick as
thought the librarian threw the manuscript between her and the hearth.
She crouched instantly, her eyes fixed on the book. But his voice went
on as if still he read, and his eyes seemed also fixed on the book:--

"Ah, the two worlds! so strangely are they one,
And yet so measurelessly wide apart!
Oh, had I lived the bodiless alone
And from defiling sense held safe my heart,
Then had I scaped the canker and the smart,
Scaped life-in-death, scaped misery's endless moan!"

At these words such a howling, such a prolonged yell of agony burst from
the cat, that we both stopped our ears. When it ceased, Mr. Raven walked
to the fire-place, took up the book, and, standing between the creature
and the chimney, pointed his finger at her for a moment. She lay
perfectly still. He took a half-burnt stick from the hearth, drew with
it some sign on the floor, put the manuscript back in its place, with a
look that seemed to say, "Now we have her, I think!" and, returning to
the cat, stood over her and said, in a still, solemn voice:--

"Lilith, when you came here on the way to your evil will, you little
thought into whose hands you were delivering yourself!--Mr. Vane, when
God created me,--not out of Nothing, as say the unwise, but out of His
own endless glory--He brought me an angelic splendour to be my wife:
there she lies! For her first thought was POWER; she counted it slavery
to be one with me, and bear children for Him who gave her being. One
child, indeed, she bore; then, puffed with the fancy that she had
created her, would have me fall down and worship her! Finding, however,
that I would but love and honour, never obey and worship her, she poured
out her blood