about her forehead.

More, she began slowly to stroke her abundant hair, then her breast and
body. Wherever her fingers passed the mystic light was born, until in
that darkened room--for the dusk was gathering--she shimmered from head
to foot like the water of a phosphorescent sea, a being glorious yet
fearful to behold. Then she waved her hand, and, save for the gentle
radiance on her brow, became as she had been.

"Art so sure, my Holly?" Ayesha repeated. "Nay, shrink not; that flame
will not burn thee. Mayhap thou didst but imagine it, as I have noted
thou dost imagine many things; for surely no woman could clothe herself
in light and live, nor has so much as the smell of fire passed upon my
garments."

Then at length my patience was outworn, and I grew angry.

"I am sure of nothing, Ayesha," I answered, "except that thou wilt make
us mad with all these tricks and changes. Say, art thou a spirit then?"

"We are all spirits," she said reflectively, "and I, perhaps, more than
some. Who can be certain?"

"Not I," I answered. "Yet I implore, woman or spirit, tell me one thing.
Tell me the truth. In the beginning what wast thou to Leo, and what was
he to thee?"

She looked at me very solemnly and answered--"Does my memory deceive
me, Holly, or is it written in the first book of the Law of the Hebrews,
which once I used to study, that the sons of Heaven came down to the
daughters of men, and found that they were fair?"

"It is so written," I answered.

"Then, Holly, might it not have chanced that once a daughter of Heaven
came down to a man of Earth and loved him well? Might it not chance that
for her great sin, she, this high, fallen star, who had befouled her
immortal state for him, was doomed to suffer till at length his love,
made divine by pain and faithful even to a memory, was permitted to
redeem her?"

Now at length I saw light and sprang up eagerly, but in a cold voice she
added:

"Nay, Holly, cease to question me, for there are things of which I can
but speak to thee in figures and in parables, not to mock and bewilder
thee, but because I must. Interpret them as thou wilt. Still, Atene
thought me no mortal, since she told us that man and spirit may not
mate; and there are matters in which I let her judgment weigh with me,
as without doubt now, as in other lives, she and that old Shaman, her
uncle, have wisdom, aye, and foresight. So bid my lord press me no more
to wed him, for it gives me pain to sa