"Nay," said Croft in a softer voice. "Nay, Naia, woman of my soul--whom Zitu himself decreed in the beginning to be my mate. For love such as mine is no sin, but the law of Zitu himself--the cause of all living--all life. Yet, save you yield yourself to me of your own will, those things my spirit cries for shall not be. And--can I not convince you that, despite the words of Zud, which were ill advised, I am no more than him to whom you gave your promise--than are you--free?" He broke off and for the first time bowed his head. Something like despair seized upon him--a sick wave of discouraged purpose, as he realized how fully the leaven of the high priest's revelations had been at work--as he sensed that the very union she had confessed to him in the past she herself desired, had come to appear now a breaking of the law--a union unnatural--unsanctioned by the God of her religion--a sacrilegious thing. And as he stood there a change came over the girl who watched. For the first time in her knowledge of him Jasor of Nodhur bent his unflinching crest; for the first time a hopeless something weakened the lines of his strongly commanding face. And only one who knows the hearts of women may tell what things stirred that moment in her breast. She moved. Step by step she approached him where he stood. In an almost timid fashion she lifted a bared arm and laid her hand against his chest. "But," she faltered, "Abbu said--" "What?" Croft did not alter his position. "Those things which sent my spirit down to the dark world of Zitemku, ruler of the lost souls, in surprised dismay--that made me tremble as with cold--that sent me to kneel before Ga for hours that, being a woman and knowing women, she might help me to understand--that the spirit which dwelt in Jasor of Nodhur's body was not his own, but another's--sent by Zitu to possess it--when Jasor--died." The last was a quivering whisper, no more than a sibilant breath. "And if what Abbu said were truth?" Croft lifted his somber visage and looked down into her darkly tragic eyes. Twin pools of mental agony, they seemed, very close beneath his face--and Naia of Aphur's flesh on cheek and throat and scarce-veiled bosom gleamed bloodless, pallid. Even her parted lips were white. "If?" they questioned as he paused. "Think you that, right or wrong in Zitu's sight, I myself could mate with you were it the truth--couldst give myself to the embrace of a body filled by another than that spirit Zitu breathed into it at birth; think you my flesh would not shrink in very horror from the contact, my spirit rebel, nor force my flesh to yield? And were Abbu's tale true, then, too, were the high priest right. For how might such a thing transpire save by the will of Zitu himself--how else the body of a man who had given up the spirit return to life?" * * * * *