above sorrow. I have given her the peace--as
I will give it to you if--"

"You'll give me nothing," he interrupted fiercely; then, his passion
breaking through all restraint--"Yes, you damned witch--you'll give me
back my sister!"

In his rage he had spoken English; she could not, of course, have
understood the words, but their anger and hatred she did understand.
Her serenity quivered, broke. The strange stars within her eyes began
to glitter forth as they had when she had summoned the Smiting Thing.
Unheeding, Ventnor thrust out a hand, caught her roughly by one bare,
lovely shoulder.

"Give her back to me, I say!" he cried. "Give her back to me!"

The woman's eyes grew--awful. Out of the distended pupils the strange
stars blazed; upon her face was something of the goddess outraged. I
felt the shadow of Death's wings.

"No! No--Norhala! No, Martin!" the veils of inhuman calm shrouding Ruth
were torn; swiftly the girl we knew looked out from them. She threw
herself between the two, arms outstretched.

"Ventnor!" Drake caught his arms, held them tight; "that's not the way
to save her!"

Ventnor stood between us, quivering, half sobbing. Never until then had
I realized how great, how absorbing was that love of his for Ruth. And
the woman saw it, too, even though dimly; envisioned it humanly. For,
under the shock of human passion, that which I thought then as utterly
unknown to her as her cold serenity was to us, the sleeping soul--I
use the popular word for those emotional complexes that are peculiar to
mankind--stirred, awakened.

Wrath fled from her knitted brows; her eyes dropping to the girl, lost
their dreadfulness; softened. She turned them upon Ventnor, they brooded
upon him; within their depths a half-troubled interest, a questioning.

A smile dawned upon the exquisite face, humanizing it, transfiguring
it, touching with tenderness the sweet and sleeping mouth--as a hovering
dream the lips of the slumbering maid.

And on the face of Ruth, as upon a mirror, I watched that same slow,
understanding tenderness reflected!

"Come," said Norhala, and led the way through the sparkling curtains.
As she passed, an arm around Ruth's neck, I saw the marks of Ventnor's
fingers upon her white shoulder, staining its purity, marring it like a
blasphemy.

For an instant I hung behind, watching their figures grow misty within
the shining shadows; then followed hastily. Entering the mists I was
conscious of a pleasa