garments."

Then at length my patience was outworn, and I grew angry.

"I am sure of nothing, Ayesha," I answered, "except that thou wilt make
us mad with all these tricks and changes. Say, art thou a spirit then?"

"We are all spirits," she said reflectively, "and I, perhaps, more than
some. Who can be certain?"

"Not I," I answered. "Yet I implore, woman or spirit, tell me one thing.
Tell me the truth. In the beginning what wast thou to Leo, and what was
he to thee?"

She looked at me very solemnly and answered--"Does my memory deceive
me, Holly, or is it written in the first book of the Law of the Hebrews,
which once I used to study, that the sons of Heaven came down to the
daughters of men, and found that they were fair?"

"It is so written," I answered.

"Then, Holly, might it not have chanced that once a daughter of Heaven
came down to a man of Earth and loved him well? Might it not chance that
for her great sin, she, this high, fallen star, who had befouled her
immortal state for him, was doomed to suffer till at length his love,
made divine by pain and faithful even to a memory, was permitted to
redeem her?"

Now at length I saw light and sprang up eagerly, but in a cold voice she
added: