ndfold and more eternal than ourselves, spring up upon the
universal bosom of the earth to be the bane of a million destinies,
whilst the everlasting Finger writes its endless count, and a cold
voice of Justice cries in our conscience-haunted solitude, 'Oh! soul
unshriven, behold the ripening harvest thy wanton hand did scatter, and
long in vain for the waters of forgetfulness.'

"Think what it is to have every earthly wisdom, yet to burn unsatisfied
for the deeper and forbidden draught; to gather up all wealth and power
and let them slip again, like children weary of a painted toy; to sweep
the harp of fame, and, maddened by its jangling music, to stamp it small
beneath our feet; to snatch at pleasure's goblet and find its wine is
sand, and at length, outworn, to cast us down and pray the pitiless gods
with whose stolen garment we have wrapped ourselves, to take it back
again, and suffer us to slink naked to the grave.

"Such is the life thou askest, Leo. Say, wilt thou have it now?"

"If it may be shared with thee," he answered. "These woes are born of
loneliness, but then our perfect fellowship would turn them into joy."

"Aye," she said, "while it was permitted to endure. So be it, Leo. In
the spring, when the snows melt, we will journey together to Libya, and
there thou shalt be bathed in the Fount of Life, that forbidden Essence
of which once thou didst fear to drink. Afterwards I will wed thee."

"That place is closed for ever, Ayesha."

"Not to my feet and thine," she answered. "Fear not, my love, were this
mountain heaped thereon, I would blast a path through it with mine eyes
and lay its secret bare. Oh! would that thou wast as I am, for then
before tomorrow's sun we'd watch the rolling pillar thunder by, and thou
shouldst taste its glory.

"But it may not be. Hunger or cold can starve thee, and waters drown;
swords can slay thee, or sickness sap away thy strength. Had it not been
for the false Atene, who disobeyed my words, as it was foredoomed
that she should do, by this day we were across the mountains, or had
travelled northward through the frozen desert and the rivers. Now we
must await the melting of the snows, for winter is at hand, and in it,
as thou knowest, no man can live upon their heights."

"Eight months till April before we can start, and how long to cross
the mountains and all the vast distances beyond, and the seas, and the
swamps of Kor? Why, at the best, Ayesha, two years must go by b