I get hold of him. I wonder what I shall do with myself now?--
haunted and brain-ridden as I am by this woman and her picture?"

The hot sun glared in his eyes and made them ache,--the rough
stones of the narrow street were scorching to his feet. He began
to move slowly away with a curious faint sensation of giddiness
and sickness upon him, when the sound of music floating from the
direction of the Princess Ziska's palace brought him to a sudden
standstill. It was a strange, wild melody, played on some
instrument with seemingly muffled strings. A voice with a deep,
throbbing thrill of sweetness in it began to sing:

Oh, for the passionless peace of the Lotus-Lily!
It floats in a waking dream on the waters chilly,
With its leaves unfurled
To the wondering world,
Knowing naught of the sorrow and restless pain
That burns and tortures the human brain;
Oh, for the passionless peace of the Lotus-Lily!

Oh, for the pure cold heart of the Lotus-Lily!
Bared to the moon on the waters dark and chilly.
A star above
Is its only love,
And one brief sigh of its scented breath
Is all it will ever know of Death;
Oh, for the pure cold heart of the Lotus-Lily!

When the song ceased, Gervase raised his eyes from the ground on
which he had fixed them in a kind of brooding stupor, and stared