Still Ayesha stood silent, only now her head drooped and her breast began to heave.  Then Leo stepped forward; he seized her in his arms and kissed her.  She broke from his embrace, I know not how, for though she returned it was close enough, and again stood before him but at a little distance.

“Did I not warn Holly,” she whispered with a sigh, “to bid thee beware lest I should catch thy human fire?  Man, I say to thee, it begins to smoulder in my heart, and should it grow to flame——­”

“Why then,” he answered laughing, “we will be happy for a little while.”

“Aye, Leo, but how long?  Why wert thou sole lord of this loveliness of mine and not set above their harming, night and day a hundred jealous daggers would seek thy heart and—­find it.”

“How long, Ayesha?  A lifetime, a year, a month, a minute—­I neither know nor care, and while thou art true to me I fear no stabs of envy.”

“Is it so?  Wilt take the risk?  I can promise thee nothing.  Thou mightest—­yes, in this way or in that, thou mightest—­die.”

“And if I die, what then?  Shall we be separated?”

“Nay, nay, Leo, that is not possible.  We never can be severed, of this I am sure; it is sworn to me.  But then through other lives and other spheres, higher lives and higher spheres mayhap, our fates must force a painful path to their last goal of union.”

“Why then I take the hazard, Ayesha.  Shall the life that I can risk to slay a leopard or a lion in the sport of an idle hour, be too great a price to offer for the splendours of thy breast?  Thine oath!  Ayesha, I claim thine oath.”

Then it was that in Ayesha there began the most mysterious and thrilling of her many changes.  Yet how to describe it I know not unless it be by simile.

Once in Thibet we were imprisoned for months by snows that stretched down from the mountain slopes into the valleys and oh! how weary did we grow of those arid, aching fields of purest white.  At length rain set in, and blinding mists in which it was not safe to wander, that made the dark nights darker yet.

So it was, until there came a morning when seeing the sun shine, we went to our door and looked out.  Behold a miracle!  Gone were the snows that choked the valley and in the place of them appeared vivid springing grass, starred everywhere with flowers, and murmuring brooks and birds that sang and nested in the willows.  Gone was the frowning sky and all the blue firmament seemed one tender smile.  Gone were the austerities of winter with his harsh winds, and in their place spring, companioned by her zephyrs, glided down the vale singing her song of love and life.

There in this high chamber, in the presence of the living and the dead, while the last act of the great tragedy unrolled itself before me, looking on Ayesha that forgotten scene sprang into my mind.  For on her face just such a change had come.  Hitherto, with all her loveliness, the heart of Ayesha had seemed like that winter mountain wrapped in its unapproachable snow and before her pure brow and icy self-command, aspirations sank abashed and desires died.