which sang sweet and clear in my memory-dreams; so that it seemed to me
that Mirdath the Beautiful slept within my soul, and whispered to me out
of all the ages.

And then, one day, at the fifteenth hour, when began the Sleep-Time, I
had been pondering this love of mine that lived with me still; and
marvelling that my memory-dreams held the voice of a love that _had
been_ in so remote an age. And pondering and dreaming thus, as a young
man may, I could fancy this aeon-lost One were whispering beauty into
my ears, in verity; so clear had my memory grown, and so much had I
pondered.

And lo! as I stood there, harking and communing with my thoughts, I
thrilled suddenly, as if I had been smitten; for out of all the
everlasting night a whisper was thrilling and thrilling upon my more
subtile hearing.

Through four long years had I listened, since that awakening in the
embrasure, when but a youth of seventeen; and now out of the
world-darkness and all the eternal years of that lost life, which now I
live in this Present Age of ours, was the whisper come; for I knew it
upon that instant; and yet, because I was so taught to wisdom, I
answered by no name; but sent the Master-Word through the night--sending
it with my brain-elements, as I could, and as all may, much or little,
as may be, if they be not clods. And, moreover, I knew that she who
called quietly would have the power to hear without instruments, if
indeed it were she; and if it were but one of the false callings of the
Evil Forces, or more cunning monsters, or as was sometimes thought
concerning these callings, the House of Silence, meddling with our
souls, then would they have no power to say the Master-Word; for this