ads; one step more, and she was beside him!
She threw back her black mantle, displaying a garment of purest white
clasped round the waist with a girdle of gold. Her massive tresses of
rich dark hair floating over her brow shadowed her face until she looked
like some great spirit queen, the Spirit Queen of Night.

She stooped; she placed her lips close to those of Chios, but they did
not touch. She felt his warm breath on her cheeks. He lived! He sighed
like the soughing of the wind amongst the reeds. He murmured, 'Saronia.'

She started up; stood near him. He still slept. She stood erect, with
arms crossed over her bosom and head bowed, looking sweetly on his manly
face. Then, taking from her neck a little silver shrine, in form like
unto the Temple, she laid it on his bosom, fled noiselessly as she came,
and passed up the road which led towards the great Temple.

* * * * *

Chios awoke, and for a moment was bewildered. He had slept when the
golden sunlight smiled, and now the silver moon lit up the sky, lit up
the garments of the night, and he said:

'Sleep is a blessed thing. Its mysteries, who can know? Dreams, they
say, are fables of the mind. Would to Heaven I could have dreamt on, and
have slipped through the thin gauze of mortality, and never more entered
this vile clay supposed to be the temple of the soul!

'I wandered on and on into infinite space--without light, without the
faintest dawn; no beloved hand led me. Weary and sad I flew from star to
star, looking for my rest, but finding none. No chain of sympathy bound
me until I drew nigh unto a world as one suspended glory. Then my whole
soul stretched out to reach it, and I knew I had found sanctuary. I
stood before the gates of a great city whose walls shone forth like a
thousand suns, and I essayed to enter; but a being of transcendent
loveliness stood before me, and I knew it was Saronia! She said: "Not
yet, Chios. Thy humanity still lives, and the silver cord still binds
thee to it. Thou must return and work out thy destiny. This city shalt
thou dimly see, and then go back to earth."

'And we twain floated upwards, and stood on the diamond floor on the
summit of the massive walls.

'And I looked on the great city until its loveliness bewildered, dazzled
my comprehension, and I shuddered at my own deformity, and said: "Let us
go!"

'Then, with a love radiant with eternal life, she pressed her lips to
mine, saying: "