millions and millions of miles; but of you, my one thought on earth,
my one thought in Eternity, I could find no trace, not even the
whisper of your voice in passing. I tossed myself upon a hurrying wind
and let it carry me whither it would. It gathered strength and haste
as it flew, and whirled me out into the night, nowhere, everywhere.
And then it slackened--and moaned--and then, with one great sob, it
died, and once more I was alone in space and an awful silence. And
then a voice came from out the void and said to me, 'Go down; he
is there;' and I knew that he meant to Earth, and for a moment I
rebelled. To go back to that terrible--But on Earth there had been
nothing so desolate as this--and if you were there! So I came--and I
have found you at last."

She put her arms about him and drew him down onto the low window-seat.
He shivered at her touch, but felt no impulse to resist her will, and
she pressed his head down upon her cold breast. Then, suddenly, all
things changed; the gallery, the moonlight, the white-robed, ice-cold
woman faded from sense. The storm was no longer in his ears nor
were the waves at his feet. He was standing in a dusky Eastern room,
familiar and dear to him. Tapestries of rich stuffs were about him,
and the skins of wild animals beneath his feet. Beyond, the twilight
stole through a window, but did not reach where he stood. And in his
close embrace was the woman he loved, with the stamp on her face
of suffering, of desperate resolution, and of conscious, welcomed
weakness. And in his face was the regret for wasted years and
possibilities, and a present, passionate gladness; _that_ he could see
in the mirror of the eyes over which the lids were slowly falling....
And the woman wore a clinging, shining yellow gown, and a blaze of
jewels in her hair. What was said he hardly knew. It was enough to
feel that a suddenly-born, passionate joy was making his pulses leap