shadowy--blending into the dusky mistiness that encircled us.

Then, when a thin, curved line of soft light was all that lit the sea,
she released me--pushing me from her, tenderly. Her voice sounded in my
ears, 'I may not stay longer, Dear One.' It ended in a sob.

She seemed to float away from me, and became invisible. Her voice came
to me, out of the shadows, faintly; apparently from a great distance:--

'A little while--' It died away, remotely. In a breath, the Sea of
Sleep darkened into night. Far to my left, I seemed to see, for a brief
instant, a soft glow. It vanished, and, in the same moment, I became
aware that I was no longer above the still sea; but once more suspended
in infinite space, with the Green Sun--now eclipsed by a vast, dark
sphere--before me.

Utterly bewildered, I stared, almost unseeingly, at the ring of green
flames, leaping above the dark edge. Even in the chaos of my thoughts, I
wondered, dully, at their extraordinary shapes. A multitude of questions
assailed me. I thought more of her, I had so lately seen, than of the
sight before me. My grief, and thoughts of the future, filled me. Was I
doomed to be separated from her, always? Even in the old earth-days, she
had been mine, only for a little while; then she had left me, as I
thought, forever. Since then, I had seen her but these times, upon the
Sea of Sleep.

A feeling of fierce resentment filled me, and miserable questionings.
Why could I not have gone with my Love? What reason to keep us apart?
Why had I to wait alone, while she slumbered through the years, on the
still bosom of the Sea of Sleep? The Sea of Sleep! My thoughts turned,
inconsequently, out of their channel of bitterness, to fresh, desperate
questionings. Where was it? Where was it? I seemed to have but just
parted from my Love, upon its quiet surface, and it had gone, utterly.
It could not be far away! And the White Orb which I had seen hidden in
the shadow of the Sun of Darkness! My sight dwelt upon the Green
Sun--eclipsed. What had eclipsed it? Was there a vast, dead star
circling it? Was the _Central_ Sun--as I had come to regard it--a double
star? The thought had come, almost unbidden; yet why should it not
be so?

My thoughts went back to the White Orb. Strange, that it should have
been--I stopped. An idea had come, suddenly. The White Orb and the Green
Sun! Were they one and the same? My imagination wandered backward, and I
remembered the luminous globe to whi