“I am aware,” he faltered, yet conscious that he bowed, “of standing before a Great One of some world unknown to me. Who he may be I have but the privilege of wondering. He has spoken darkly of a Kingdom that is lost. Yet he is still, I see, a Monarch.” And he lowered his head and shoulders involuntarily.
For an instant, then, as he said it, the eyes before him flashed their original terrific lightnings. The darkness of the common world faded before the entrance of an Outer Darkness. From gulfs of terror at his feet rose shadows out of the night of time, and a passionate anguish as of sudden madness seized his heart and shook it.
He listened breathlessly for the words that followed. It seemed some wind of unutterable despair passed in the breath from those non-human lips:
“I am still a Monarch, yes; but my Kingdom is taken from me, for I have no single subject. Lost in a loneliness that lies out of space and time, I am become a throneless Ruler, and my hopelessness is more than I can bear.” The beseeching pathos of the voice tore him in two. The Deity himself, it seemed, stood there accused of jealousy, of sin and cruelty. The stranger rose. The power about him brought the picture of a planet, throned in mid-heaven and poised beyond assault. “Not otherwise,” boomed the startling words as though an avalanche found syllables, “could I now show myself to—you.”
Delane was trembling horribly. He felt the next words slip off his tongue unconsciously. The shattering truth had dawned upon his soul at last.
“Then the light you saw, and came to——?” he whispered.
“Was the light in your heart that guided me,” came the answer, sweet, beguiling as the music in a woman’s tones, “the light of your instant, brief desire that held love in it.” He made an opening movement with his arms as he continued, smiling like stars in summer. “For you summoned me; summoned me by your dear and precious belief: how dear, how precious, none can know but I who stand before you.”
His figure drew up with an imperial air of proud dominion. His feet were set among the constellations. The opening movement of his arms continued slowly. And the music in his tones seemed merged in distant thunder.
“For your single, brief belief,” he smiled with the grandeur of a condescending Emperor, “shall give my vanished Kingdom back to me.”
And with an air of native majesty he held his hand out—to be kissed.