had gained all.

"In that moment of intense consciousness a cry breaks the stillness,
and searching among the marbles he finds a dying woman. Gathering
some fruit, he gives her to eat, and they walk together, she
considering him as saviour and lord, he wrapped in the contemplation
of the end. They are the end, and all paling fascination, which is
the world, is passing from them, and they are passing from it. And
the splendour of gold and red ascends and spreads--crown and raiment
of a world that has regained its primal beauty.

"'We are alone,' the woman says. 'The world is ours; we are as king
and queen, and greater than any king or queen.'

"Her dark olive skin changes about the neck like a fruit near to
ripen, and the large arms, curving deeply, fall from the shoulder in
superb indolences of movement, and the hair, varying from burnt-up
black to blue, curls like a fleece adown the shoulders. She is large
and strong, a fitting mother of man, supple in the joints as the
young panther that has just bounded into the thickets; and her rich
almond eyes, dark, and moon-like in their depth of mystery, are fixed
on him. Then he awakes to the danger of the enchantment; but she
pleads that they, the last of mankind, may remain watching over each
other till the end; and seeing his eyes flash, her heart rejoices.
And out of the glare of the moon they passed beneath the sycamores.
And listening to the fierce tune of the nightingales in the dusky
daylight there, temptation hisses like a serpent; and the woman
listens, and drawing herself about the man, she says--

"'The world is ours; let us make it ours for ever; let us give birth