id there was none, save in the maker's mind. Yes, I have
seen a man go crazed with seeking and die with the mystery unsolved. How
much harder, then, is it to come at the diamond of Truth which lies at
the core of all our nest of dreams and without which to rest upon they
could not be fashioned to seem realities?"

"But was it really a dream, and if so, what were the truth and the
lesson?" I asked, determined not to allow her to bemuse or escape me
with her metaphysical talk and illustrations.

"The first question has been answered, Allan, as well as I can answer,
who am not the architect of this great globe of dreams, and as yet
cannot clearly see the ineffable gem within, whose prisoned rays
illuminate their substance, though so dimly that only those with the
insight of a god can catch their glamour in the night of thought, since
to most they are dark as glow-flies in the glare of noon."

"Then what are the truth and the lesson?" I persisted, perceiving that
it was hopeless to extract from her an opinion as to the real nature of
my experiences and that I must content myself with her deductions from
them.

"Thou tellest me, Allan, that in thy dream or vision thou didst seem to
appear before thyself seated on a throne and in that self to find thy
judge. That is the Truth whereof I spoke, though how it found its way
through the black and ignorant shell of one whose wit is so small,
is more than I can guess, since I believed that it was revealed to me
alone."

(Now I, Allan, thought to myself that I began to see the origin of all
these fantasies and that for once Ayesha had made a slip. If she had a
theory and I developed that same theory in a hypnotic condition, it was
not difficult to guess its fount. However, I kept my mouth shut, and
luckily for once she did not seem to read my mind, perhaps because she
was too much occupied in spinning her smooth web of entangling words.)

"All men worship their own god," she went on, "and yet seem not to know
that this god dwells within them and that of him they are a part. There
he dwells and there they mould him to their own fashion, as the potter
moulds his clay, though whatever the shape he seems to take beneath
their fingers, still he remains the god infinite and unalterable. Still
he is the Seeker and the Sought, the Prayer and its Fulfilment, the Love
and the Hate, the Virtue and the Vice, since all these qualities the
alchemy of his spirit turns into an ultimate and ete