"We men have yet to learn the true meaning of love,"--he mused rather sadly--"We consider it from the selfish standpoint of our own unbridled passions,--we willingly accept a fair face as the visible reflex of a fair soul, and nine times out of ten, we are utterly mistaken! We begin wrongly, and we therefore end miserably,--we should love a woman for what she IS, and not for what she appears to be. Yet, how are we to fathom her nature? how shall we guess, . . how can we decide? Are we fooled by an evil fate?--or do we in our loves and marriages deliberately fool ourselves?" He pondered the question hazily without arriving at any satisfactory answer, . . and as Sah-luma still did not return, he resumed his slow, unguided, and solitary way. He presently found himself in a close boscage of tall trees straight as pines, and covered with very large, thick leaves that exhaled a peculiarly faint odor,--and here, pausing abruptly, he looked anxiously about him. This was certainly not the avenue through which he had previously come with Sah-luma, . . and he soon felt uncomfortably convinced that he had somehow taken the wrong path. Perceiving a low iron gate standing open in front of him, he went thither and discovered a steep stone staircase leading down, down into what seemed to be a vast well, black and empty as a starless midnight. Peering doubtfully into this gloomy pit, he fancied he saw a small, blue flame wavering to and fro at the bottom, and, pricked by a sudden impulse of curiosity, he made up his mind to descend.