“O fair King Christ!” she cried, and her voice seemed to strike a melodious passage through the air..  “Thou canst prevail!” A burst of music answered her, . . music that rushed wind-like downwards and swept in strong vibrating chords over the land,—­again the “Kyrie eleison!  Christe eleison!  Kyrie eleison!” pealed forth in the same full youthful-toned chorus that had before sounded so mysteriously outside Elzear’s hermitage—­and the separate crimson rays glittering aurora-wise about her radiant figure, suddenly melted all together in the form of a great cross, which, absorbing moon and stars in its fiery redness, blazed from end to end of the eastern horizon!

Then, like a fair white dove or delicate butterfly she rose ... she poised herself above the bowing Ardath bloom ... anon, soaring aloft, she floated higher. ... higher! ... and ever higher, serenely and with aerial slow ease,—­till drawn into the glory of that wondrous flaming cross whose outstretched beams seemed waiting to receive her,—­she drifted straight up wards through its very centre. ... and so vanished! ...

Theos stared aghast at the glowing sky ... whither had she gone?  Her words still rang in his ears,—­the warmth of her kiss still lingered on his lips,—­he loved her! ... he worshipped her! ... why, why had she left him “lost” as she herself had said, in a world that was mere emptiness without her?  He struggled for utterance...

“Edris ... !” he whispered hoarsely—­“Edris! ...  My Angel-love! ... come back!  Come back ... pity me! ... forgive! ...  Edris!”

His voice died in a hard sob of imploring agony,—­smitten to the very soul by a remorse greater than he could bear, his strength failed him, and he fell senseless, face forward among the flowers of the Prophet’s field; . . flowers that, circling snowily around his dark and prostrate form, looked like fairy garlands bordering a Poet’s Grave!

PART II.—­IN AL-KYRIS.

“That which hath been, is now:  and that which is to be, hath
already been:  . . and God requireth that which is past.” 
Ecclesiastes.

CHAPTER XI.

The marvellous city.

Profound silence,—­profound unconsciousness,—­oblivious rest!  Such are the soothing ministrations of kindly Nature to the overburdened spirit; Nature, who in her tender wisdom and maternal solicitude will not permit us to suffer beyond a certain limit.  Excessive pain, whether it be physical or mental, cannot last long,—­and human anguish wound up to its utmost quivering-pitch finds at the very height of desolation, a strange hushing, Lethean calm.  Even so it was with Theos Alwyn,—­drowned in the deep stillness of a merciful swoon, he had sunk, as it were, out of life,—­far out of the furthest reach or sense of time, in some vast unsounded gulf of shadows where earth and heaven were alike forgotten! ...