Her face was unveiled and I perceived that it had greatly changed.  All pride and anger were departed from it; it was grown soft, wistful, yet full of confidence and quietness.  For a while I could not think of what it reminded me, till suddenly I remembered.  Now it was like, indeed the counterpart almost, of the holy and majestic semblance of the statue of the Mother in the Sanctuary.  Yes, with just such a look of love and power as that mother cast upon her frightened child new-risen from its dream of death, did Ayesha gaze upon her dead, while her parted lips also seemed to whisper “some tale of hope, sure and immortal.”

At length she rose and came into my chamber.

“Thou thinkest me fallen and dost grieve for me, my Holly,” she said in a gentle voice, “knowing my fears lest some such fate should overtake my lord.”

“Ay, Ayesha, I grieve for thee as for myself.”

“Spare then thy pity, Holly, since although the human part of me would have kept him on the earth, now my spirit doth rejoice that for a while he has burst his mortal bonds.  For many an age, although I knew it not, in my proud defiance of the Universal Law, I have fought against his true weal and mine.  Thrice have I and the angel wrestled, matching strength with strength, and thrice has he conquered me.  Yet as he bore away his prize this night he whispered wisdom in my ear.  This was his message:  That in death is love’s home, in death its strength; that from the charnel-house of life this love springs again glorified and pure, to reign a conqueror forever.  Therefore I wipe away my tears and, crowned once more a queen of peace, I go to join him whom we have lost, there where he awaits us, as it is granted to me that I shall do.

“But I am selfish, and forgot.  Thou needest rest.  Sleep, friend, I bid thee sleep.”

And I slept wondering as my eyes closed whence Ayesha drew this strange confidence and comfort.  I know not but it was there, real and not assumed.  I can only suppose therefore that some illumination had fallen on her soul, and that, as she stated, the love and end of Leo in a way unknown, did suffice to satisfy her court of sins.

At the least those sins and all the load of death that lay at her door never seemed to trouble her at all.  She appeared to look upon them merely as events which were destined to occur, as inevitable fruits of a seed sowed long ago by the hand of Fate for whose workings she was not responsible.  The fears and considerations which weigh with mortals did not affect or oppress her.  In this as in other matters, Ayesha was a law unto herself.

When I awoke it was day, and through the window-place I saw the rain that the people of Kaloon had so long desired falling in one straight sheet.  I saw also that Ayesha, seated by the shrouded form of Leo, was giving orders to her priests and captains and to some nobles, who had survived the slaughter of Kaloon, as to the new government of the land.  Then I slept again.