And then once again those fingers of steel grasped something--something that all their strength seemed unable to move. Our breath came in gasps, our forms shook like the leaves of the aspen tree, and in the heart was a fear, too great to be measured, of failure. Long, long the effort lasted--lasted until the will seemed to discard its own puerile strength and to fling itself upon the bosom of impersonal force, seize the reservoir of the universal will, and turn its power in a mighty stream upon the burden of one desire--one unyielding demand that the door be opened. And with that borrowed force came the sense of unlimited strength. Faith was born. We stretched out our arms in gestures of which I can only remember that they were first those of invitation, then of welcome. Nature began to pulsate. There was a sound like the slow, regular beating of a heart, in the chambers of which we were inclosed. The inner life throbbed with it so fiercely that the blood seemed almost to leap from my body. All about us were the movements of awakening birds and insects; from afar came the lowing of kine, the crowing of cocks, and the crying of children, as if they were suddenly startled into fear. In the centre of the circle appeared a square of strange light. We looked upon it and beheld a place of which the darkness and the light of this world are but the envelopes. We saw there, afar off, a vast crystalline globe, from which extended, in all directions, millions of filaments of clear light. The globe scintillated as a diamond does, and its sparks floated away upon the endless filaments of light. Nearer to us, moving about, were beings not human, and not resembling each other further than that they were all gigantic and all possessed of some human attributes. Some were beautiful, some hideous; but upon every one was stamped--in strange characters that I somehow understood--the words “_I only am God_.” Upon some the writing was fantastic, as if put on in mockery. Upon others it shone with a clear and cruel radiance that pained the sight. Some bore it faded and dim, as if the pretension it set up had fallen like a leaf into the stream of the ages and been almost forgotten. A great awe fell upon us all, so great that all, except the woman Asenath and myself, fell down and seemed as if dead. The woman trembled and murmured to herself, and again my lips formed her words: “Is it worth while, when human desires are so poor, human life so short?” Through that door there floated not a voice, for the silence was only broken by a faint, soft hum, like very distant music, but an unspoken command that impressed itself upon the spirit. “_Speak!_” Still the woman hesitated. Suddenly her lips moved again, mine following them: “But only through this can _he_ be won.” “I would have the desire of my heart,” she said aloud.