“Oh, Jim!” she breathed, in an awe-stricken recognition, “that was _my_ crime--the crime for which you punished me----” “Look!” he murmured. “Look! It is not finished yet.” In fact, the cloud was parting once more, parting this time over a scene in ancient Egypt. Once more they recognized themselves, princess and priest of a temple, in a drama that passed vaguely, too quickly in its remoteness to be fully grasped, before their sight. Scene after scene unfolded itself in the depths of the crystal, in a succession of varying settings, in an ever-briefer duration, an ever more vague drama of relationship, whose blurred outlines were perhaps the effect of their fatigued attention, no longer able to follow in their details visions possibly as minutely exhibited as the first. Always their two personalities, in ever-changing incarnations, met and reacted in wild passions that claimed them fully. In the eternal history of their lives, all was possible, all had happened, every variation of experience--save only indifference to each other. An unseen link held them always, tightened into contact from the moment of propinquity. On islands in a blue sea furrowed by long-oared and primitive galleys; in cities of Cyclopean masonry that glittered, as if vitrified, in a burning sun; in dark forests where skin-clad savages went furtively with stone-barbed spears and knelt in worship of the animal that they had just slain; by the side of reedy lakes where hairy, scarce-human creatures crouched and gnawed the bones they plucked from the embers--always they two met and always they were lovers, fortunate sometimes, tragic sometimes, but always lovers. Beyond humanity, far into the mists of time where strange shapes bodied themselves, unrecognizable, and were dissipated into others yet more strange, the visions continued in ever-increasing recession--leading back into a distance where they lost all sense of personal participation among vague and formless shadows. They watched, in a breathless fascination. Still farther back, beyond those shadows, something began to glow in the depths of a night that cleared to transparent blackness, a ball of fire, of living light that pulsed with intense incandescence in an uttermost remoteness. And, as they watched, it divided itself, split into two smaller spheres that circled about each other, throwing out flames that reached like clutching arms in vain endeavour to reëstablish unity. For an incomputable period--it seemed æons to those souls who watched--they circled, held in mutual attraction and yet still apart despite the reaching streamers. And then slowly, slowly, they approached--their light heightening to a yet more vivid brightness as they drew near....