“Stay! stay!” he cried aloud.

Obedient to his call she paused, but did not turn.  He came up with her. ... he caught at her robe, soft to the touch as silken gauze, and overwhelmed by a sudden emotion of awe and reverence, he sank on his knees.

“Who, and what are you?” he murmured in trembling tones—­“Tell me!  If you are mortal maid I will not harm you, I swear! ...  See! ...  I am only a poor crazed fool that loves a Dream, ... that stakes his life upon a chance of Heaven, ... pity me as you are gentle! ... but do not fear me ... only speak!”

No answer came.  He looked up—­and now in the rich radiance of the moon beheld her face ... how like, and yet how altogether unlike it was to the face of the Angel in his vision!  For that ethereal Being had seemed dazzlingly, supremely beautiful beyond all mortal power of description,—­whereas this girl was simply fair, small, and delicate, with something wistful and pathetic in the lines of her sweet mouth, and shadows as of remembered sorrows slumbering in the depths of her serene, dove-like eyes.  Her fragile figure drooped wearily as though she were exhausted by some long fatigue, ... yet, ... gazing down upon him, she smiled, ... and in that smile, the faint resemblance she bore to his Spirit-ideal flashed out like a beam of sunlight, though it vanished again as quickly as it had shone.  He waited eagerly to hear her voice, ... waited in a sort of breathless suspense,—­but as she still kept silence, he sprang up from his kneeling attitude and seized her hands ... how soft they were and warm!—­he folded them in his own and drew her closer to himself ... the flowers she held fell from her grasp, and lay in a tumbled fragrant heap between them.  His brain was in a whirl—­the Past and the Future—­the Real and the Unreal—­ the Finite and the Infinite—­seemed all merging into one another without any shade of difference or division!

“We have met very strangely, you and I!”—­he said, scarcely conscious of the words he uttered—­“Will you not tell me your name?”

A faint sigh escaped her.

“My name is Edris,” she answered, in low musical accents, that carried to his sense of hearing a suggestion, of something sweet and familiar.

“Edris!” he repeated—­“Edris!” and gazing at her dreamily he raised her hands to his lips and kissed them gently—­“My fairest Edris!  From whence do you come?”

She met his eyes with a mild look of reproach and wonderment.

“From a far, far country, Theos!” and he started as she thus addressed him—­“A land where no love is wasted and no promise forgotten!”

Again that mystic light passed over her pale face—­the blossom-coronal she wore seemed for a moment to glitter like a circlet of stars.  His heart beat quickly—­could he believe her? ... was she in very truth that shining Peri whose aerial loveliness had so long haunted his imagination?  Nay!—­it was impossible! ... for if she were, why should she veil her native glory in such simple maiden guise?