“Near I am far,” she said; “and far I am near, if only this love of yours is strong enough to follow and to clasp. And, Humphrey, it needs strength, for here I am afraid that it will bear little of such fruit as men desire to pluck.” Again terror took hold of me, and I looked at her, for I did not know what to say or ask. “Listen,” she went on. “Already my father has offered me to you in marriage, has he not, but at a price which you do not understand? Believe me, it is one that you should never pay, since the rule of the world can be too dearly bought by the slaughter of half the world. And if you would pay it, I cannot.” “But this is madness!” I exclaimed. “Your father has no powers over our earth.” “I would that I could think so, Humphrey. I tell you that he has powers and that it is his purpose to use them as he has done before. You, too, he would use, and me.” “And, if so, Yva, we are lords of ourselves. Let us take each other while we may. Bastin is a priest.” “Lords of ourselves! Why, for ought I know, at this very moment Oro watches us in his thought and laughs. Only in death, Humphrey, shall we pass beyond his reach and become lords of ourselves.” “It is monstrous!” I cried. “There is the boat, let us fly away.” “What boat can bear us out of stretch of the arm of the old god of my people, Fate, whereof Oro is the high priest? Nay, here we must wait our doom.” “Doom,” I said—“doom? What then is about to happen?” “A terrible thing, as I think, Humphrey. Or, rather, it will not happen.” “Why not, if it must?” “Beloved,” she whispered, “Bastin has expounded to me a new faith whereof the master-word is Sacrifice. The terrible thing will not happen _because of sacrifice!_ Ask me no more.” She mused a while, seated there in the moonlight upon the ancient altar of sacrifice, the veil she wore falling about her face and making her mysterious. Then she threw it back, showing her lovely eyes and glittering hair, and laughed. “We have still an earthly hour,” she said; “therefore let us forget the far, dead past and the eternities to come and be joyful in that hour. Now throw your arms about me and I will tell you strange stories of lost days, and you shall look into my eyes and learn wisdom, and you shall kiss my lips and taste of bliss—you, who were and are and shall be—you, the beloved of Yva from the beginning to the end of Time.” CHAPTER XXII. The Command