golden sands to crimson, and made the granite monster look like a
cruel idol surrounded by a sea of blood. The brilliant red of the
heavens flamed in its stony eyes, and gave them a sentient look as
of contemplated murder,--and the same radiance fitfully playing on
the half-scornful, half-sensual lips caused them to smile with a
seeming voluptuous mockery. Dr. Dean stood transfixed for a while
at the strange splendor of the spectacle, and turning to his two
silent companions, said suddenly:

"There is something, after all, in the unguessed riddle of the
Sphinx. It is not a fable; it is a truth. There is a problem to be
solved, and that monstrous creature knows it! The woman's face,
the brute's body--Spiritualism and Materialism in one! It is life,
and more than life; it is love. Forever and forever it teaches the
same wonderful, terrible mystery. We aspire, yet we fall; love
would fain give us wings wherewith to fly; but the wretched body
lies prone--supine; it cannot soar to the Light Eternal."

"What IS the Light Eternal?" queried Gervase, moodily. "How do we
know it exists? We cannot prove it. This world is what we see; we
have to do with it and ourselves. Soul without body could not
exist. ..."

"Could it not?" said the Doctor. "How, then, does body exist
without soul?"

This was an unexpected but fair question, and Gervase found
himself curiously perplexed by it. He offered no reply, neither
did Denzil, and they all three slowly entered the Mena House
Hotel, there to be met with deferential salutations by the urbane