marriage and the outer world, but before
I even knew of Egyplosis I had a day dream. I saw with my waking eyes
this temple-palace as one might see it in a picture, splendid as the
reality. I saw myself with a youth of noble aspect standing in a court
of the garden, and his arm was around me. He was tall and shapely as a
palm tree and was all tenderness and devotion. The picture vanished,
yet its influence remained. It utterly transformed me from the
undreaming girl that I was to a soul active and ardent, already
experienced in what life really was. I learned that the mystery of
life was love, and longed for spiritual companionship with an inmate
of Egyplosis."

"Was the dream fulfilled as you expected it would be?" I inquired.

"Exactly as I anticipated," said Lyone. "I entered Egyplosis in spite
of the earnest desire of my people to remain in the outer world and
lead a life of barren conventionality."

"Had you not learned," I inquired, "that it was impossible to overleap
the purposes of nature without paying a penalty therefor, that ideal
passion will in time give way to the commonplace, just as water
follows the law of gravity?"

"I knew nothing but that ideal love might be eternal. It is the
passion that makes a goddess human and the mortal divine. Within a
month after entering the temple walls I discovered the very reality of
the image I had seen years before. He was my twin-soul, my lover, my
god. At our first meeting we simultaneously burst into tears. It was
an ecstasy in which the body did not participate to any marked extent,
but belonged purely to the region of the soul. We accepted the vows
made at the installation of a twin-soul and became a completed
circle."

"Being the goddess," I said, "your lover must have died?"

"He died some years ago," she said, "and on his death, by reason of my
widowhood, my gifts, my spirituality, my love and my beauty, I was
elevated to the throne of the gods when vacant, and was worshipped as
supreme goddess of the faith. It is utterly against our laws for a
goddess to choose another counterpart; she is supposed to belong only
to Harikar, the ideal soul whom also she symbolizes; hence I am
obliged to dwell largely alone."

"You doubtless regret the loss of your earthly counterpart?" I urged.

"Regret it! Ah, that was life!" she said, "for my soul then knew what
spiritual freedom means. I experienced ecstatic agonies, bliss was
pain and pain paradise. I flew as a bir