For, shaping on the dark like a picture—but real, so real that he had but to rise and enter, came the lost heaven of Kapila, where Rohini flowed in liquid light, and there in cool green shades he beheld those loveliest in whose arms once he lay. Soft bosoms, intolerably sweet after long pain and loneliness, entreated him to rest. Deep eyes, love-filled, invited. And at the last one alone drew near him and it seemed that in that one fair face was centred all beauty that was his in those far days. In one all wooed him. “Come to me—Come to me. Dear lord, you have borne torture for long years and grief exceeding. You have hungered and thirsted and wept tears of blood and still the Way eludes you, and all was vain. There is no Way. It is delusion. Vain it must be: not thus is Paradise found. Love is heaven—there is no other.”—So said the Beautiful kneeling before him, most dear and desirable, with passionate dark eyes more eloquent than music plucked on harp or sitar, words spoken between kisses and the slackening and straining of arms that are the bonds of love. On his knees he felt the warmth of her golden bosom, sun-kissed fruit for the tasting, on his hands the clasp of those little fingers that once clenched his heart. “Put away your pale dreams of Heaven. O Prince beloved!” she pleaded. “Heaven is here and now by bright Rohini. Come, taking and giving joy. O sad and wearied, and utterly foredone, come back to us and be made whole and glad. Am I not yours? Rest in my arms. Forget the cold ascetic, and be again our Prince, our warrior. Come! Time goes swiftly and the sands of life are blown about the desert and man knows them no more.” She moved as if to draw him with her, and all her naked loveliness swam rose and gold before his eyes, long hair, brightening at the tendril-ends, caressing the slender curves of perfect feet, the smile of victory touching soft lips,—breathless beauty waiting its fruition, queen and slave of men, thinking its victory won, looking downward half amazed at its own perfection. Then lifting her head that Beautiful regarded him in triumph as the moon rides serene over tossing waves, and lo! he sat motionless and unmoved, with eyes looking past her to a distant hope, and his face was set and calm as doom. And suddenly, shuddering together with the sighing shudder of leaves in cold rain, the sweet shape wavered, trembled like an image in water when the rings widen outward and all is dispersed, and it was gone, for the waste night closed about it and took it.