“No. I can help you to sleep very gently. I can make you very drowsy.... You are drowsy now.... You are very close to the edge of sleep.... Sleep, dear.... Sleep, easily, naturally, confidently as a tired boy.... You are sleeping, ... deeply ... sweetly ... my dear ... my dear, dear husband.” CHAPTER XI YULUN THE BELOVED Cleves opened his eyes. He was lying on his left side. In the pink glow of the night-lamp he saw his wife in her night-dress, seated sideways on the farther edge of the bed, talking to a young girl. The strange girl wore what appeared to be a chamber-robe of frail gold tissue that clung to her body and glittered as she moved. He had never before seen such a dress; but he had seen the girl; he recognised her instantly as the girl he had seen turn to look back at Tressa as she crossed the phantom bridge over that misty Florida river. And Cleves comprehended that he was looking at Yulun. But this charming young thing was no ghost, no astral projection. This girl was warm, living, breathing flesh. The delicate scent of her strange garments and of her hair, her very breath, was in the air of the room. Her half-hushed but laughing voice was deliciously human; her delicate little hands, caressing Tressa’s, were too eagerly real to doubt. Both talked at the same time, their animated voices mingling in the breathless delight of the reunion. Their exclamations, enchanting laughter, bubbling chatter, filled his ears. But not one word of what they were saying to each other could he understand. Suddenly Tressa looked over her shoulder and met his astonished eyes. “Tokhta!” she exclaimed. “Yulun! My lord is awake!” Yulun swung around swiftly on the edge of the bed and looked laughingly at Cleves. But when her red lips unclosed she spoke to Tressa: and, “Darling,” she said in English, “I think your dear lord remembers that he saw me on the Bridge of Dreams. And heard the bells of Yian across the mist.” Tressa said, laughing at her husband: “This is Yulun, flame-slender, very white, loveliest in Yian. On the rose-marble steps of the Yezidee Temple she flung a stemless rose upon Djamouk’s shroud, where he had spread it like a patch of snow in the sun. “And at the Lake of the Ghosts, where there is freedom to love, for those who desire love, came Yaddin, Tougtchi to Djamouk the Fox, in search of love—and Yulun, flame-slim, and flower-white.... Tell my dear lord, Yulun!” Yulun laughed at Cleves out of her dark eyes that slanted charmingly at the corners. “Kai!” she cried softly, clapping her palms. “I took his roses and tore them with my hands till their petals rained on him and their golden hearts were a powdery cloud floating across the water. “I said: ‘Even the damned do not mate with demons, my Tougtchi! So go to the devil, my Banneret, and may Erlik seize you!’” Cleves, his ears ringing with the sweet confusion of their girlish laughter, rose from his pillow, supporting himself on one arm.