“Hush!”—­she said, and her lovely, low voice was tremulous,—­ “Hush!—­Thou dost speak as if we were already in God’s World!  I love thee, Theos! ... and truly, because thou art prisoned here, I love the sad Earth also! ... but dost thou think to what thou wouldst so eagerly persuade me?  To live a mortal life? ... to die? ... to pass through the darkest phase of world-existence known in all the teeming spheres?  Nay!".. and a look of pathetic sorrow came over her face..  “How could I, even for thee, my Theos, forsake my home in Heaven?”

Her last words were half-questioning, half-hesitating, ... her manner was as of one in doubt.. and Theos, kneeling still, surveyed her in worshipping silence.  Then he suddenly remembered what the Monk and Mystic, Heliobas, had said to him at Dariel on the morning after his trance of soul-liberty:  . .  “If, as I conjecture, you have seen one of the fair inhabitants of higher spheres than ours, you would not drag her spiritual and death-unconscious brightness down to the level of the ‘reality’ of a mere human life? ...  Nay, if you would you could not!” And now, strange to say, he felt that he could but would not; and he was overcome with remorse and penitence for the egotistical nature of his own appeal.

“My love—­my life!” he said brokenly,—­“Forgive me,—­forgive my selfish prayer! ...  Self spoke,—­not I, . . yet I had thought Self dead, and buried forever!” A faint sigh escaped him ...  “Believe me, Sweet, I would not have thee lose one hour of Heaven’s ecstasies, . .  I would not have thee saddened by Earth’s wilful miseries, ... no! not even for that lightning-moment which numbers up man’s mortal days!  Speed back to Angel-land, my Edris!—­I will love thee till I die, and leave the Afterward to Christ.  Be glad, thou fairest, dearest One! ... unfurl thy rainbow wings and fly from me! ... and wander singing through the groves of Heaven, making all Heaven musical, . . perchance in the silence of the night I may catch the echo of thy voice and fancy thou art near!  And trust me, Edris! ... trust me! ... for my faith will not falter, ... my hope shall not waver, ... and though in the world I may, I must have tribulation, yet will I believe in Him who hath by simple love overcome the world!”

He ceased, . . a great quiet seemed to fall upon him,—­the quiet of a deep and passive resignation.

Edris drew nearer to him,—­timidly as a shy bird, yet with a wonderful smile quivering on her lips, and in the clear depths of her starry eyes.  Very gently she placed her arms about his neck and looked down at him with divinely compassionate tenderness.