“To-morrow, Lysia, thou shalt claim nothing!” he said in a still, composed voice that to himself had something strange and unearthly in its tone ...  “Not even a grave!  Get thee hence! ... pray to thy gods if thou hast any,—­for truly there is need of prayer!  Thou shalt not harm Sah-luma, . . his love for thee may be his present curse,—­but it shall not work his future ruin!  As for me, . . though canst not slay me, Lysia,—­seeing that to myself I am dead already! ... dead, yet alive in thought, . . and thou dost now seem to my soul but the shadow of a past Crime, . . the ghost of a temptation overcome and baffled!  Ah, thou sweet Sin!” here he suddenly moved toward her and caught her hands hard, looking fearlessly the while at her flushed half-troubled face,—­“I do confess that I have loved thee, . .  I do own that I have found thee fair! ... but now—­now that I see thee as thou art, in all the nameless horror of thy beauty, I do entreat,".. and his accents sank to a low yet fervent supplication—­“I do entreat the most high God that I may be released from thee forever!”

She gazed upon him with dilated, terrified eyes, ... and he dimly wondered, as he looked, why she should seem to fear him?—­Not a word did she utter in reply, . . step by step she retreated from him, . . her glittering, exquisite form grew paler and more indistinct in outline—­and presently, catching at the gold curtain that divided the two pavilions, she paused...still regarding him steadfastly.  An evil smile curved her lips, . . a smile of cold menace and derisive scorn, . . the iris-colored jewel on her breast darted forth vivid flashes of azure, and green and gray, . . the snakes in her hair seemed to rise and hiss at him, . . and then,—­ with an awful unspoken threat written resolvedly on every line of her fair features, . . she let the gold draperies fall softly,—­and so disappeared, . . leaving him alone with Sah-luma!  He stood for a moment half amazed, half perplexed,—­then, drawing a deep breath, he pushed the clustering hair off his forehead with an unconscious gesture of relief.  She was gone! ... and he felt as though he had gained a victory over something, though he knew not what.  The cold air from the lake blew refreshingly on his heated brow, . . and a thousand odors from orange-flowers and jessamine floated caressingly about him.  The night was very still,—­and approaching the opening of the tent, he looked out.  There, in the soft sky gloom, moved the majestic procession of the Undiscovered Worlds seeming to be no more than bright dots on the measureless expanse of pure ether, . . there, low on the horizon, the yellow moon swooned languidly downwards in a bed of fleecy cloud,—­the drowsy chirrup of a dreaming bird came softly now and again from the deep-branched shadows of the heavy foliage,—­and the lilies on the surface of the lake nodded mysteriously among the slow ripples, like wise, white elves whispering to one another some secret of fairyland.  And Sah-luma still slept,