But the golden shadow by the door was empty of her. If she had slipped through the doorway he had not noticed her departure. Yet she was no longer there. And, when he understood, he turned back into the empty room, quivering all over. Suddenly a terrible need of Tressa assailed him—an imperative necessity to speak to her—hear her voice. “Tressa!” he called, and rested his hand on the centre table, feeling weak and shaken to the knees. Then he looked down and saw the mulberry leaves lying scattered there, tender and green and still dewy with the dew of China. “Oh, my God!” he whispered, “such things _are_! It isn’t my mind that has gone wrong. There _are_ such things!” The conviction swept him like a tide till his senses swam. As though peering through a mist of gold he saw his wife enter and come to him;—felt her arm about him, sustaining him where he swayed slightly with one hand on the table among the mulberry leaves. “Ah,” murmured Tressa, noticing the green leaves, “she oughtn’t to have done that. That was thoughtless of her, to show herself to you.” Cleves looked at her in a dazed way. “The body is nothing,” he muttered. “The rest only is real. That is the truth, isn’t it?” “Yes.” “I seem to be beginning to believe it.... Sansa said things—I shall try to tell you—some day—dear.... I’m so glad to hear your voice.” “Are you?” she murmured. “And so glad to feel your touch.... I found a shroud on my threshold. And a knife.” “The Yezidees are becoming mountebanks.... Where is the knife?” she asked scornfully. “Sansa said it was poisoned. She took it. She—she said that a poisoned heart is more dangerous still.” Then Tressa threw up her head and called softly into space: “Sansa! Little Silk-Moth! What are these mischievous things you have told to my lord?” She stood silent, listening. And, in the answer which he could not hear, there seemed to be something that set his young wife’s cheeks aflame. “Sansa! Little devil!” she cried, exasperated. “May Erlik send his imps to pinch you if you have said to my lord these shameful things. It was impudent! It was mischievous! You cover me with shame and confusion, and I am humbled in the dust of my lord’s feet!” Cleves looked at her, but she could not sustain his gaze. “Did Sansa say to you what she said to me?” he demanded unsteadily. “Yes.... I ask your pardon.... And I had already _told_ her you did not—did not—were not—in—love—with me.... I ask your pardon.” “Ask more.... Ask your heart whether it would care to hear that I am in love. And with whom. Ask your heart if it could ever care to listen to what my heart could say to it.” “Y-yes—I’ll ask—my heart,” she faltered.... “I think I had better finish dressing——” She lifted her eyes, gave him a breathless smile as he caught her hand and kissed it. “It—it would be very wonderful,” she stammered, “—if our necessity should be-become our choice.”