Part 41 (1/2)

”In--in China?”

”Yes,” she said calmly, detaching another mulberry and eating it. A few fresh leaves fell on the centre table.

Sansa chose another berry. ”You know,” she said, ”that I came to Tressa this morning,--to my little Heart of Fire I came when she called me. And I was quite sleepy, too. But I heard her, though there was a night wind in the mulberry trees, and the river made a silvery roaring noise in the dark.... And now I must go. But I shall come again very soon.”

She smiled shyly and held out her lovely little hand, ”--As Tressa tells me is your custom in America,” she said, ”I offer you a good-bye.”

He took her hand and found it a warm, smooth thing of life and pulse.

”Why,” he stammered in his astonishment, ”you _are_ real! You are not a ghost!”

”Yes, I am real,” she answered, surprised, ”but I'm not in my body,--if you mean that.” Then she laughed and withdrew her hand, and, going, made him a friendly gesture.

”Cherish, my lord, my darling Heart of Fire. Serpents twist and twine.

So do rose vines. May their petals make your path of velvet and sweet scented. May everything that is round be a pomegranate for you two to share; may everything that sways be lilies bordering a path wide enough for two. In the name of the Most Merciful G.o.d, may the only cry you hear be the first sweet wail of your first-born. And when the tenth shall be born, may you and Heart of Fire bewail your fate because both of you desire more children!”

She was laughing when she disappeared. Cleves thought she was still there, so radiant the suns.h.i.+ne, so sweet the scent in the room.

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 a.s.sailed 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 G.o.d!” 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 s.p.a.ce: ”Sansa!

Little Silk-Moth! What are these mischievous things you have told to my lord?”