Suddenly there came a change over the face of what I thought the sky—­the clouds were torn asunder as it were to show a breadth of burning amber and rose, and I beheld the semblance of a great closed Gateway barred across as with gold.  Here a figure slowly shaped itself,—­the figure of a woman who knelt against the closed barrier with hands clasped and uplifted in pitiful beseeching.  So strangely desolate and solitary was her aspect in all that heavenly brilliancy that I could almost have wept for her, shut out as she seemed from some mystic unknown glory.  Round her swept the great circle of the heavens—­beneath her and above her were the deserts of infinite space—­and she, a fragile soul rendered immortal by quenchless fires of love and hope and memory, hovered between the deeps of immeasurable vastness like a fluttering leaf or flake of snow!  My heart ached for her—­my lips moved unconsciously in prayer: 

“O leave her not always exiled and alone!” I murmured, inwardly—­ “Dear God, have pity!  Unbar the gate and let her in!  She has waited so long!”

The hand holding mine strengthened its clasp,—­and the warm, close pressure sent a thrill through my veins.  Almost I would have turned to look at my companion—­had I not suddenly seen the closed gateway in the heavens begin to open slowly, allowing a flood of golden radiance to pour out like the steady flowing of a broad stream.  The kneeling woman’s figure remained plainly discernible, but seemed to be gradually melting into the light which surrounded it.  And then—­ something—­I know not what—­shook me down from the pinnacle of vision,—­hardly aware of my own action, I withdrew my hand from my companion’s, and saw—­just the solemn grandeur of Loch Coruisk, with a deep amber glow streaming over the summit of the mountains, flung upward by the setting sun!  Nothing more!—­I heaved an involuntary sigh—­and at last, with some little hesitation and dread, looked full at Santoris.  His eyes met mine steadfastly—­he was very pale.  So we faced each other for a moment—­then he said, quietly:—­

“How quickly the time has passed!  This is the best moment of the sunset,—­when that glory fades we shall have seen all!”

IX

DOUBTFUL DESTINY

His voice was calm and conventional, yet I thought I detected a thrill of sadness in it which touched me to a kind of inexplicable remorse, and I turned to him quickly, hardly conscious of the words I uttered.

“Must the glory fade?”—­I said, almost pleadingly—­“Why should it not remain with us?”

He did not reply at once.  A shadow of something like sternness clouded his brows, and I began to be afraid—­yet afraid of what?  Not of him—­but of myself, lest I should unwittingly lose all I had gained.  But then the question presented itself—­What had I gained?  Could I explain it, even to myself?  There was nothing in any way tangible of which to say—­“I