“Not yet, not yet,” she answered hurriedly, her voice quivering as she spoke.  “Leo, thou must put that hope from thy thoughts awhile, and for some few months, a year perchance, be content to play the part of friend and lover.”

“Why so?” he asked, with bitter disappointment.  “Ayesha, those parts have been mine for many a day; more, I grow no younger, and, unlike thee, shall soon be old.  Also, life is fleeting, and sometimes I think that I near its end.”

“Speak no such evil-omened words,” she said, springing from the couch and stamping her sandalled foot upon the ground in anger born of fear.  “Yet thou sayest truth; thou art unfortified against the accidents of time and chance.  Oh! horrible, horrible; thou mightest die again, and leave me living.”

“Then give me of thy life, Ayesha.”

“That would I gladly, all of it, couldst thou but repay me with the boon of death to come.

“Oh! ye poor mortals,” she went on, with a sudden burst of passion; “ye beseech your gods for the gift of many years, being ignorant that ye would sow a seed within your breasts whence ye must garner ten thousand miseries.  Know ye not that this world is indeed the wide house of hell, in whose chambers from time to time the spirit tarries a little while, then, weary and aghast, speeds wailing to the peace that it has won.

“Think then what it is to live on here eternally and yet be human; to age in soul and see our beloved die and pass to lands whither we may not hope to follow; to wait while drop by drop the curse of the long centuries falls upon our imperishable being, like water slow dripping on a diamond that it cannot wear, till they be born anew forgetful of us, and again sink from our helpless arms into the void unknowable.

“Think what it is to see the sins we sin, the tempting look, the word idle or unkind—­aye, even the selfish thought or struggle, multiplied ten thousandfold and more eternal than ourselves, spring up upon the universal bosom of the earth to be the bane of a million destinies, whilst the everlasting Finger writes its endless count, and a cold voice of Justice cries in our conscience-haunted solitude, ’Oh! soul unshriven, behold the ripening harvest thy wanton hand did scatter, and long in vain for the waters of forgetfulness.’

“Think what it is to have every earthly wisdom, yet to burn unsatisfied for the deeper and forbidden draught; to gather up all wealth and power and let them slip again, like children weary of a painted toy; to sweep the harp of fame, and, maddened by its jangling music, to stamp it small beneath our feet; to snatch at pleasure’s goblet and find its wine is sand, and at length, outworn, to cast us down and pray the pitiless gods with whose stolen garment we have wrapped ourselves, to take it back again, and suffer us to slink naked to the grave.

“Such is the life thou askest, Leo.  Say, wilt thou have it now?”

“If it may be shared with thee,” he answered.  “These woes are born of loneliness, but then our perfect fellowship would turn them into joy.”