Then, facing the East, with lowered arms and palms turned outward: “There is no god but God,” she whispered—“the merciful, the long-suffering, the compassionate, the just. “For it is written that when the heavens are rolled together like a scroll, every soul shall know what it hath wrought. “And those souls that are dead in Jehannum shall arise from the dead, and shall have their day in court. Nor shall Erlik stay them till all has been said. “And on that day the soul of a girl that hath been put to death shall ask for what reason it was slain. “Thus it has been written.” Then Tressa dropped to her knees, touched the carpet with her forehead, straightened her lithe body and, looking over her shoulder, clapped her hands together sharply. Her maid opened the door. “Hasten with my lord’s luggage!” she cried happily; and, still kneeling, lifted her head to her husband and laughed up into his eyes. “You should call the porter for we are nearly ready. Shall we go to the station in a sleigh? Oh, wonderful!” She leaped to her feet, extended her hand and caught his. “Horses for the lord of the Yiort!” she cried, laughingly. “Kosh! Take me out into this new white world that has been born to-day of the ten purities and the ten thousand felicities! It has been made anew for you and me who also have been born this day!” He scarcely knew this sparkling, laughing girl with her quick grace and her thousand swift little moods and gaieties. Porters came to take his luggage from his own room; and then her trunk and bags were ready, and were taken away. The baggage sleigh drove off. Their own jingling sleigh followed; and Tressa, buried in furs, looked out upon a dazzling, unblemished world, lying silvery white under a sky as azure as her eyes. “Keuke Mongol—Heavenly Azure,” he whispered close to her crimsoned cheek, “do you know how I have loved you—always—always?” “No, I did not know that,” she said. “Nor I, in the beginning. Yet it happened, also, from the beginning when I first saw you.” “That is a delicious thing to be told. Within me a most heavenly glow is spreading.... Unglove your hand.” She slipped the glove from her own white fingers and felt for his under the furs. “Aie,” she sighed, “you are more beautiful than Ali; more wonderful than the Flaming Pearl. Out of ice and fire a new world has been made for us.” “Heavenly Azure—my darling!” “Oh-h,” she sighed, “your words are sweeter than the breeze in Yian! I shall be a bride to you such as there never has been since the days of the Blessed Companions—may their names be perfumed and sweet-scented!... Shall I truly be one with you, my lord?” “Mind, soul, and body, one being, you and I, little Heavenly Azure.” “Between your two hands you hold me like a burning rose, my lord.” “Your sweetness and fire penetrate my soul.” “We shall burn together then till the sky-carpet be rolled up. Kosh! We shall be one, and on that day I shall not be afraid.”