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Across the Zodiac.

them from the sick-room to that distant chamber in which I had so lately stood.

· · · · ·

I seemed to stand beside her, and at once to be aware that my thought was visible to the closed eyes. From lips paler than ever, words—so generally resembling those I had previously heard that some readers may think them the mere recollection thereof—appeared to reach my sense or my mind as from a great distance, spoken in a tone of mingled pity, promise, and reproof:—

"What is youth or sex or beauty in the All-Commander's sight? For the arm that smote and spared not, shall His wisdom spare to smite? Yet, love redeems the loving; yet in thy need avail The Soul whose light surrounds thee, the faith that will not fail. Thy lips shall soothe the terror, call to yon couch afar The solace of the Serpent, the shadow of the Star!Strength shall sustain the strengthless, nor the soft hand loose its grasp Of the hand it trusts and clings to—till another meet its clasp. . . .—Steel-hard to man's last anguish, wax-soft to woman's mood!—Death quits not the death-dealer; blood haunts the life of blood!"
· · · · ·

Returning to the peristyle, I encountered Eveena, who had been seeking me anxiously. Much alarmed for her, I bade her return at once to her room. She obeyed as of course, equally of course surprised and a little mortified; while I, marvelling by what conceivable means the plague of Cairo or Constantinople could have been conveyed across forty million miles of space and some two years of Earthly time, paced the peristyle for a few minutes. As I did so, my eye fell on the roses which grew just where chance arrested my steps. If they do not afford an explanation which scientific

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