der to break out in open revolt!"

"Then, sir, we will take care that you are not their leader; we shall
suppress you, as we have all similar cases, in the cells of the
fortress. Neither Egyplosis nor Atvatabar will hear of your crime. His
majesty the king will, I have no doubt, acquiesce in the wisdom of
such sentence."

"The punishment is no greater than the crime," said the high
priestess. "I despair of Egyplosis if such crimes become frequent.
What will our goddess think, what will Atvatabar think of our holy
temple when its own priests, the sacred devotees of Harikar, the
ministers of the supreme goddess and teachers of the people in their
holy religion, are found traitors? Will the government support
rebellious and sinful souls in every luxury for the senses, with every
possible means for developing and achieving spiritual mastery over the
physical world, on the sole condition of hopeless love? It will not.
Hence, I say, this disobedience must be quenched in the spark, or it
will break out in ruin to our whole religious institution."

"Your punishment," said the high priest, "unless you will repent of
your misdeed, give up possession of your offspring, and live ever
afterward as holy priests of hopeless love, will be separate and
solitary confinement for life in the fortress. You will both be simply
obliterated from the world."

As the high priest uttered these words the mother-priestess gave a cry
of terror, and, grasping her infant convulsively, gazed with an
appealing glance at the goddess.

"We refuse to live as hypocrites," said the youth; "we are no longer
twin-souls--we are man and wife and demand to be set free."

"Will you, each of you," said the goddess, "renounce that obedience
that makes you factors of deities? Will you dethrone ideal love? Will
you throw away palaces and gardens and flowers? Will you forswear the
delight of the companionship of twin-souls?"

"We wish to be set free, your holiness," said the youth with firm, set
lips.

"Do you no longer value the secrets of magic and sorcery? Do you
renounce initiation into the secrets of nature to possess creative
force to taste the elixir of life, the secret of the transformation of
metals, and, above all, the blessedness of Nirvana? Knowing that love
dies in possession do you desire to step forth from paradise into a
hard, cold, realistic world, where every experience is a spear driven
into the flesh?"

"We dare our fate!" replied the yo