the Spark blazed through her brimming eyes, weariness vanished.
"Home! home!" sung her rapt lips; and in the delirious ecstasy of
the hour she pressed toward the hearth, laid down her scrip and
staff upon the heaped wood, flung herself on the red stone, and,
heedless of the opal talisman, flashed outward from her joyful eyes
the Spark,--the Crown, the Curse! So a forked tongue of lightning
speeds from its rain-fringed cloud, and cleaves the oak to its centre;
so the blaze of a meteor rushes through mid-heaven, and--is gone!
The Spark lit, quivered, sunk, and flashed again; but the wood lay
unlighted beneath it. Maya gasped for breath, and with the long
respiration the Spark returned, lit upon her lips, seared them like
a hot iron, and entered into her heart,--the blighting canker of her
fate, a bitterness in flesh and spirit forevermore.

Writhing with anguish and contempt, she turned away from the wrought
stone whose semblance had beguiled her to her mortal loss; and as
she passed from the step, another hand lit a consuming blaze beneath
her staff and scrip, sending a sword of flame after her to the
threshold, and the house-spirit shrieked aloud, "Only stones
together strike fire, Maya!"--while from the casement above looked
forth two faces, false and fair, with eyes of azure ice, and
disdainful smiles, and bound together by a curling serpent, that
ringed itself in portentous symbol about their waists.

With star-like eyes, proud lips, and erect head, Maya went out. Her
laugh rang loud; her song soared in wild and mocking cadence to the
stars; her rigid brow wore scorn like a coronal of flame; and with a
scathed nature she trod the streets of the city, mixed with its
wondering crowds, made the Spark a blaze and a marvel in all lands,--
but hid the opal in her bosom; for its scarlet spot of life-blood