The girl flushed brightly and rested one hand on the foot of the bed. “Do you remember in the moonlight where you walked along the hedge of white hibiscus and oleander—that night you said good-bye to Tressa in the South?” “Yes.” “Twice,” she said, laughing, “you stopped to peer at the blossoms in the moonlight.” “I thought I saw a face among them.” “You were not sure whether it was flowers or a girl’s face looking at you from the blossoming hedge of white hibiscus,” said Yulun. “I know now,” he said in an odd, still voice, unlike his own. “Yes, it was I,” she murmured. And of a sudden the girl dropped to her knees without a sound and laid her head on the velvet carpet at his feet. So swiftly, noiselessly was it done that he had not comprehended—had not moved—when she sat upright, resting on her knees, and grasped the collar of her tunic with both gemmed hands. “Have pity on me, lord of my lost soul!” she cried softly. Benton stooped in a dazed way to lift the girl; but found himself knee deep in a snowy drift of white hibiscus blossoms—touched nothing but silken petals—waded in them as he stepped forward. And saw her standing before him still grasping the collar of her golden tunic. A great white drift of bloom lay almost waist deep between them; the fragrance of oleander, too, was heavy in the room. “There are years of life before the flaming gates of Jehaunum open. And I am very young,” said Yulun wistfully. Somebody else laughed in the room. Turning his head, he saw Tressa standing by the empty fireplace. “What you see and hear need not disturb you,” she said, looking at Benton out of brilliant eyes. “There is no god but God; and His prophet has been called by many names.” And to Yulun: “Have I not told you that nothing can harm our souls?” Yulun’s expression altered and she turned to Benton: “Say it to me!” she pleaded. As in a dream he heard his own words: “Nothing can ever really harm the soul.” Yulun’s hands fell from her tunic collar. Very slowly she lifted her head, looking at him out of lovely, proud young eyes. She said, evenly, her still gaze on him: “I am Yulun of the Temple. My heart is like a blazing pearl which you hold between your hands. May the four Blessed Companions witness the truth of what I say.” Then a delicate veil of colour wrapped her white skin from throat to temple; she looked at Benton with sudden and exquisite distress, frightened and ashamed at his silence. In the intense stillness Benton moved toward her. Into his outstretched hands her two hands fell; but, bending above them, his lips touched only two white hibiscus flowers that lay fresh and dewy in his palms. Bewildered, he straightened up; and saw the girl standing by the mantel beside Tressa, who had caught her by the left hand. “Tokhta! Look out!” she said distinctly. Suddenly he saw two men in the room, close to him—their broad faces, slanting eyes, and sparse beards thrust almost against his shoulder.