“She was but a tender spirit, not half formed in strength—never having taken the long journey that completes and perfects the strength to that of highest God. She had nothing but her own sweet graces and winning perfection of beauty; not a fit thing to be left alone in any place of danger. Moreover, she had had no experience of anything beyond our home, and all her days had been spent in singing about the house, and working, and studying such things as were suitable to her age and understanding. “With no ostentation we saw her leave heaven and hover into space. “As she had slept the night before we had placed the seed within her bosom, and she, unconscious, smiled and clasped my fingers in her hand as once her mother did when quite a child. We saw her go, and all heaven watched in silence, and she went smiling, not understanding why she went, but as some passing pleasure of the hour. “Then there happened one of those unforeseen things that alter everything. By utter chance it happened that that day Vestasian had visited the earth, and as he flew up above the chain and mist he saw this lovely vision hovering there. “He was surprised, no doubt, to see anything so weak and defenceless near that great battlefield. And she, not knowing friend from enemy, and feeling lonely in the great waste, drew towards him. “And then began that which I told you of the other day. It was a case of hardness and strength trying to absorb softness and no strength—for that was what our daughter lacked. The only lasting and eternal strength within her was that which I had given, won from the earth. But at times, most curiously, there is strength in utter weakness, for Vestasian, acting on the impulse of the moment, despising and laughing at this weakness, caught her—and then was caught. For she had no strength to resist his all-absorbing strength; he no weakness with which to resist weakness. Almost within the instant they were joined—a union so perfect that it became imperfect, seeing it lacked one great element to keep the balance even. And so, in innocence, she went with him to hell; and at last the marriage had taken place, the one of which he spoke long since in jest. But as time went on, having on earth chosen Good and not Evil, and finding no principle of Good among these strangers she sickened, and at last died. All but those seeds of life and a frail skeleton of grace and beauty left her and passed to Vestasian, the only dowry she took to him—her life. Yet one thing she had hidden until the end—which only parted from her with her life—and that was our great secret, the seed of God to be imparted to humanity.