“No worthiness!” echoed Edris! ... what a rapture trembled through her sweet caressing voice!—­“My Theos, who is so worthy to win back what is thine own, as thou?  All Heaven has wondered at thy voluntary exile,—­thy place in God’s supernal Sphere has long been vacant, . . thy right to dwell there, none have questioned, ... thy throne is empty—­thy crown unclaimed!  Thou art an Angel even as I! ... but thou art in bonds while I am free!  Ah, how sad and strange it is to me to see thee here thus fettered to the Sorrowful Star, when, countless aeons since, thou mightest have enjoyed full liberty in the Eternal Light of the everlasting Paradise!”

He listened, ... a strong, sweet hope began to kindle in him like flame, . . but he made no answer.  Only he caught and kissed the edge of her garment, . . its soft gray cloudy texture brushed his lips with the odorous coolness of a furled roseleaf.  She seemed to tremble at his action, ... but he dared not look up.  Presently he felt the pulsing pressure of her hands upon his head! and a rush of strange, warm vigor thrilled through his veins like an electric flash of new and never-ending life.

“Thou wouldst seek after and know the truth!” she said, “Truth Celestial,—­Truth Unchangeable, . .  Truth that permeates and underlies all the mystic inward workings of the Universe, . . workings and secret laws unguessed by Man!  Vast as Eternity is this Truth,—­ungraspable in all its manifestations by the merely mortal intelligence, ... nevertheless thy spirit, being chastened to noble humility and repentance, hath risen to new heights of comprehension, whence thou canst partly penetrate into the wonders of worlds unseen.  Did I not tell thee to ’learn from the perils of the past, the perils of the future’—­and understandest thou not the lesson of the Vision of Al-Kyris?  Thou hast seen the Dream-reflection of thy former Poet-fame and glory in old time,—­thou wert Sah-luma!”

An agony of shame possessed him as he heard.  His soul at once seized the solution of the mystery, . . his quickened thought plunged plummet-like straight through the depths of the bewildering phantasmagoria, in which mere reason had been of no practical avail, and straightway sounded its whole seemingly complex, but actually simple meaning!  He was Sah-luma! ... or rather, he had been Sah-luma in some far stretch of long-receded time, ... and in his Dream of a single night, he had loved the brilliant Phantom of his Former Self more than his own present Identity!  Not less remarkable was the fact that, in this strange Sleep-Mirage, he had imagined himself to be perfectly UNselfish, whereas all the while he had honored, flattered, and admired the more Appearance of Himself more than anything or everything in the world!  Ay!—­even his occasional reluctant reproaches to Himself in the ghostly impersonation of Sah-luma had been far more tender than severe!