"Why does Theodora come to the haunts of the Persian? Why does she ask him to mock and delude her, as if it were his custom to make dupes of those who appeal to him?" "And are they not your dupes?" Theodora interposed, her face a deeper pallor than before. "Of that you shall judge after I have answered your questions," Hormazd returned darkly. "There are but two things in life that will prompt a woman like Theodora to seek aid of one like myself."-- "You arouse my curiosity!" "Disappointment in power--or love!" There was a silence. "Will you help me?" She was pleading now. The Oriental sparred for time. It was not his purpose to commit himself at once. "I am but one who, long severed from the world, has long recognized its vanities. My cures are for the body rather than the soul." Theodora's face hardened into an expression of scorn. "Am I to understand that you will do nothing for me?" she said in a tone which convinced the Persian that the time for dallying was past. The words came slowly from his lips. "I can promise you neither self-oblivion nor visionary joys. I possess an internal force, it is true, a force which, under proper control, overpowers and subdues the material, and by exerting this I can, if I think it well to do so, release your soul, that inner intelligence which, deprived of its mundane matter, is yourself, from its house of clay and allow it a brief interval of freedom. But--what in that state its experience may be, whether joy or sorrow, I cannot foretell." "Then you are not the master of the phantoms you evoke?" "I am merely their interpreter!" She looked at him steadfastly as if pondering his words. "And you profess to be able to release the soul from its abode of clay?" "I do not profess," he said quietly. "I can do so!" "And with the success of this experiment your power ceases? You cannot tell whether the imprisoned creature will take its course to the netherworld of suffering, or a heaven of delight?" "The liberated soul must shift for itself." "Then begin your incantations," Theodora exclaimed recklessly. "Send me, no matter where, so long as I escape from this den of the world, this dungeon with one small window through which, with the death rattle in our throats, we stare vacantly at the blank, unmeaning horror of life. Prove to me that the soul you prattle of exists, and if mine can find its way straight to the mainsprings of this revolving creation, it shall cling to the accursed wheels and stop them, that they may grind out the torture of life no more." She stood there, dark, defiant, beautiful with the beauty of the fallen angel. Her breath came and went quickly. She seemed to challenge some invisible opponent. The tall sinewy form by her side watched her as a physician might watch in his patient the workings of a new disease, then Hormazd said in low and tranquil tones: "You are in the throes of your own overworked emotions. You are seeking to obtain the impossible--"