full youthful-toned chorus that had before sounded so mysteriously
outside Elzear's hermitage--and the separate crimson rays
glittering aurora-wise about her radiant figure, suddenly melted
all together in the form of a great cross, which, absorbing moon
and stars in its fiery redness, blazed from end to end of the
eastern horizon!

Then, like a fair white dove or delicate butterfly she rose ...
she poised herself above the bowing Ardath bloom ... anon,
soaring aloft, she floated higher. ... higher! ... and ever
higher, serenely and with aerial slow ease,--till drawn into the
glory of that wondrous flaming cross whose outstretched beams
seemed waiting to receive her,--she drifted straight up wards
through its very centre. ... and so vanished! ...

Theos stared aghast at the glowing sky ... whither had she gone?
Her words still rang in his ears,--the warmth of her kiss still
lingered on his lips,--he loved her! ... he worshipped her! ...
why, why had she left him "lost" as she herself had said, in a
world that was mere emptiness without her? He struggled for
utterance...

"Edris ... !" he whispered hoarsely--"Edris! ... My Angel-love! ...
come back! Come back ... pity me! ... forgive! ... Edris!"

His voice died in a hard sob of imploring agony,--smitten to the
very soul by a remorse greater than he could bear, his strength
failed him, and he fell senseless, face forward among the flowers
of the Prophet's field; . . flowers that, circling snowily around
his dark and prostrate form, looked like fairy garlands bordering