true tears gather in the eyes. Those are far more bitter, and not
so good. Self-loathing is not sorrow. Yet it is good, for it marks
a step in the way home, and in the father's arms the prodigal
forgets the self he abominates. Once with his father, he is to
himself of no more account. It will be so with her."

She went nearer and said,

"Will you restore that which you have wrongfully taken?"

"I have taken nothing," answered the princess, forcing out the words
in spite of pain, "that I had not the right to take. My power to
take manifested my right."

Mara left her.

Gradually my soul grew aware of an invisible darkness, a something
more terrible than aught that had yet made itself felt. A horrible
Nothingness, a Negation positive infolded her; the border of its
being that was yet no being, touched me, and for one ghastly instant
I seemed alone with Death Absolute! It was not the absence of
everything I felt, but the presence of Nothing. The princess dashed
herself from the settle to the floor with an exceeding great and
bitter cry. It was the recoil of Being from Annihilation.

"For pity's sake," she shrieked, "tear my heart out, but let me
live!"

With that there fell upon her, and upon us also who watched with
her, the perfect calm as of a summer night. Suffering had all but