itual ill by taking a risk upon my head,
well, I have not lived, and if need be, shall not die in vain. So let us
have done with all these problems, or rather first answer thou me one.
Ayesha, how wast thou changed upon that peak?"

"In flame I left thee, Leo, and in flame I did return, as in flame,
mayhap, we shall both depart. Or perhaps the change was in the eyes of
all of you who watched, and not in this shape of mine. I have answered.
Seek to learn no more."

"One thing I do still seek to learn. Ayesha, we were betrothed to-night.
When wilt thou marry me?"

"Not yet, not yet," she answered hurriedly, her voice quivering as she
spoke. "Leo, thou must put that hope from thy thoughts awhile, and for
some few months, a year perchance, be content to play the part of friend
and lover."

"Why so?" he asked, with bitter disappointment. "Ayesha, those parts
have been mine for many a day; more, I grow no younger, and, unlike
thee, shall soon be old. Also, life is fleeting, and sometimes I think
that I near its end."

"Speak no such evil-omened words," she said, springing from the couch
and stamping her sandalled foot upon the ground in anger born of fear.
"Yet thou sayest truth; thou art unfortified against the accidents of
time and chance. Oh! horrible, horrible; thou mightest die again, and
leave me living."

"Then give me of thy life, Ayesha."

"That would I gladly, all of it, couldst thou but repay me with the boon
of death to come.

"Oh! ye poor mortals," she went on, with a sudden burst of passion; "ye
beseech your gods for the gift of many years, being ignorant that ye
would sow a seed within your breasts whence ye must garner ten thousand
miseries. Know ye not that this world is indeed the wide house of hell,
in whose chambers from time to time the spirit tarries a little while,
then, weary and aghast, speeds wailing to the peace that it has won.

"Think then what it is to live on here eternally and yet be human; to
age in soul and see our beloved die and pass to lands whither we may
not hope to follow; to wait while drop by drop the curse of the long
centuries falls upon our imperishable being, like water slow dripping on
a diamond that it cannot wear, till they be born anew forgetful of us,
and again sink from our helpless arms into the void unknowable.

"Think what it is to see the sins we sin, the tempting look, the word
idle or unkind--aye, even the selfish thought or struggle, multiplied
ten thousa