“What do you do with me?” “I follow you, over the hills.” “And then?” “At dawn you leave me.” “I am a ghost?” “I don't know. You are Despoina. You go at dawn.” A power was upon her, and within her. She put both hands on his shoulders. “One night I shall come--and not leave you. And after that you will not follow me any more. I shall follow you.” Perfectly master of himself, his eyes met hers and held them. “It shall be as you will.” She smiled confidently. “I shall come. I know that. But I shan't speak.” “What need of speech between you and me?” She saw Chevenix upon the high ground above. He stood on the grass dykes of Hirlebury, and waved his hat. “I must go now,” she said. “Good-bye, my dear one.” “Good-bye, Despoina. In seven hours you will be here again....” “It is to be observed,” says a gifted author, “that the laws of human conduct are precisely made for the conduct of this world of Men in which we live and breed and pay rent. They do not affect the Kingdom of the Dogs, nor that of the Fishes; by a parity of reasoning they should not be supposed to obtain in the Kingdom of Heaven, in which the Schoolmen discovered the citizens dwelling in nine spheres, apart from the blessed Immigrants, whose privileges did not extend so near to the Heart of the Presence. How many realms there may be between mankind's and that ultimate object of Pure Desire cannot at present be known, but it may be affirmed with confidence that any denizen of any one of them, brought into relation with human beings, would act, and lawfully act, in ways which to men would seem harsh, unconscionable, without sanction or convenience. Such a being might murder one of the ratepayers of London, compound a felony, or enter into conspiracy to depose the King himself, and, being detected, very properly be put under restraint, or visited with chastisement either deterrent or vindictive, or both. But the true inference from the premisses would be that, although duress or banishment from the kingdom might be essential, yet punishment, so called, ought not to be visited upon the offender. For he or she could not be _nostri juris,_ and that which was abominable to us might well be reasonable to him or her, and, indeed, a fulfilment of the law of his being. Punishment, therefore, could not be exemplary, since the person punished exemplified nothing to Mankind; and if vindictive, then would be shocking, since that which it vindicated, in the mind of the victim either did not exist, or ought not. The ancient Greek who withheld from the sacrifices to Showery Zeus because a thunderbolt destroyed his hayrick, or the Egyptian who manumitted his slaves because a god took the life of his eldest son, was neither a pious nor a reasonable person.