"Only _let_ me love you!" he whispered passionately. "It is honour enough. All the wide earth holds no other woman such as you. Having once known you, there has never been a disloyal thought within my heart. Read it--see for yourself." "I read it," she said, "even while the music was sounding in your ears, as you stood on the terrace there below; even while you moved amidst that chattering, flippant throng, and heard what they said of me. No, dear friend. You have nothing in that great frank, loyal soul to hide. But I--there is something that whispers I shall only bring you suffering. I am not for mortal love. True, I cannot see beyond, but Fear meets me on the threshold. The hour I gave myself to you would bring you an evil I dimly realise. I cannot foretell, and I cannot avert it; but it is there. It lurks like a hidden foe where our lives should join... No, no!--do not tempt me. Happiness is not for me, as we count it on the earth plane." "And in the next I may lose you altogether. Oh listen--listen, and let the woman defy the priestess. Give me your love, and, even with Death as its bridal gift I shall receive it as the deepest joy of earth." "There," she said sadly, "speaks the mortal. Passion sways your senses. You too will lose your powers--and for what?--a few brief years of joy--a longer darkness--then the old weary round--the old sad effort to climb the long stairway from the bottom rung that once you proudly spurned. It was not this that Channa taught us in the sweet peace of our youth--it was not this for which our souls thirsted, and to which our faces were set." "Channa is dead, and to the dead all is peace. Even he said that Life's one good gift was Love." "True, but not selfish love. `The feet of the soul must be washed in the blood of the heart.' Love to all humanity--to the poor--the sad-- the suffering. Love, even to the Fate that gives us sorrow and misfortune. Love to the eternal and immutable. Love for all that is purest and best in each life with which we mingle. Such a love is not sensual--not earthly. It gives without necessity of return; it is the soul's devotion, not the heart's impulse. But you are not content with loving me, you claim mine in return, and so far as I have lost or you have gained a firmer foothold since last we met, so far you can compel my lower nature to answer yours. We have loved before, and unhappy was our fate. Once more we meet, and your cry is still for me. And I--" She ceased; her arms fell to her side. Her face, lovely beyond all mere mortal loveliness, looked back to his yearning, passionate gaze. Had she been temptress, devil, saint, there could have been but one answer from the throbbing heart and leaping pulse of manhood. He caught her to his heart, and his lips drank from hers the sweetness that only earthly passion drains from earthly love.