through it all thou shalt despise
thyself, which is man's and woman's hardest lot, thou who having the
rare feast of spirit spread out before thee, hast chosen to fill thyself
from the troughs of flesh.'

"Then, Allan, in my dream I made a proud answer to the goddess, saying,
'Hear me, mighty mistress of many Forms who dost appear in all that
lives! An evil fate has fallen upon me, but was it I who chose that
fate? Can the leaf contend against the driving gale? Can the falling
stone turn upwards to the sky, or when Nature draws it, can the tide
cease to flow? A goddess whom I have offended, that goddess whose
strength causes the whole world to be, has laid her curse upon me and
because I have bent before the storm, as bend I must, or break, another
goddess whom I serve, thou thyself, Mother Isis, hast added to the
curse. Where then is Justice, O Lady of the Moon?'

"'Not here, Woman,' she answered. 'Yet far away Justice lives and shall
be won at last and mayhap because thou art so proud and high-stomached,
it is laid upon thee to seek her blinded eyes through many an age. Yet
at last I think thou shalt set thy sins against her weights and find
the balance even. Therefore cease from questioning the high decrees
of destiny which thou canst not understand and be content to suffer,
remembering that all joy grows from the root of pain. Moreover, know
this for thy comfort, that the wisdom which thou hast shall grow and
gather on thee and with it thy beauty and thy power; also that at the
last thou shalt look upon my face again, in token whereof I leave to
thee my symbol, the _sistrum_ that I bear, and with it this command.
Follow that false priest of mine wherever he may go and avenge me upon
him, and if thou lose him there, wait while the generations pass till he
return again. Such and no other is thy destiny.'

"Allan, the vision faded and when I awoke the lights of dawn played upon
the image of the goddess in the sanctuary. They played, moreover,
upon the holy jewelled thing that in my dream her hand had held, the
_sistrum_ of her worship, shaped like the loop of life, the magic symbol
that she had vowed to me, wherewith goes her power, which henceforth was
mine.

"I took it and followed after the priest Kallikrates, to whom
thenceforward I was bound by passion's ties that are stronger than all
the goddesses in this wide universe."

Here I, Allan, could contain myself no longer and asked, "What for?"
then, fearing he