shade, spared no pains to make it grow in their hanging gardens and spacious courts, though its nature was altogether foreign to the soil.  And now, with none to tend it or care whether it flourishes or decays, it faithfully clings to the deserted spot where it was once so tenderly fostered, showing its sympathy with the surrounding desolation, by growing always in split halves, one withered and one green—­a broken-hearted creature, yet loyal to the memory of past love and joy.  Alwyn stood under its dark boughs, knowing nothing of its name or history,—­every now and then a wailing whisper seemed to shudder through it, though there was no wind,—­ and he heard the eerie lamenting sigh with an involuntary sense of awe.  The whole scene was far more impressive by night than by day,—­the great earth mounds of Babylon looked like giant graves inclosing a glittering ring of winding waters.  Again he examined the imbedded fragment of the ancient gate,—­and then feeling quite certain of his starting-point he set his face steadily toward the southwest,—­there the landscape before him lay flat and bare in the beamy lustre of the moon.  The soil was sandy and heavy to the tread,—­moreover it was an excessively hot night,—­too hot to walk fast.  He glanced at his watch,—­it was a few minutes past ten o’clock.  Keeping up the moderate pace the heat enforced, it was possible he might reach the mysterious field about half-past eleven, . . perhaps earlier.  And now his nerves began to quiver with strong excitement, . . had he yielded to the promptings of his own feverish impatience, he would most probably have run all the way in spite of the sultriness of the air,—­but he restrained this impulse, and walked leisurely on purpose, reproaching himself as he went along for the utter absurdity of his expectations.

“Was ever madman more mad than I!” he murmured with some self-contempt—­“What logical human being in his right mind would be guilty of such egregious folly!  But am I logical?  Certainly not!  Am I in my right mind?  I think I am,—­yet I may be wrong.  The question remains, ... what is logic? ... and what is being in one’s right mind?  No one can absolutely decide!  Let me see if I can review calmly my ridiculous position.  It comes to this,—­I insist on being mesmerized ...  I have a dream, ... and I see a woman in the dream”—­here he suddenly corrected himself ... “a woman did I say?  No! ... she was something far more than that!  A lovely phantom—­a dazzling creature of my own imagination ... an exquisite ideal whom I will one day immortalize ... yes!—­ Immortalize in song!”

He raised his eyes as he spoke to the dusky firmament thickly studded with stars, and just then caught sight of a fleecy silver-rimmed cloud passing swiftly beneath the moon and floating downwards toward the earth,—­it was shaped like a white-winged bird, and was here and there tenderly streaked with pink, as though it had just travelled from some distant land where the sun was rising.  It was the only cloud in the sky,—­and it had a peculiar, almost phenomenal effect by reason of its rapid motion, there being not the faintest breeze stirring.  Alwyn watched it gliding down the heavens till it had entirely disappeared, and then began his meditations anew.