"Stara! we're here, your spirit and I come to say good-bye to the body they're burying to-morrow. It's only for a few minutes; I mustn't stay. They won't let me, Stara, for they say I killed you. But I know better than that, for your spirit has told me the truth, and I honour you for it and adore you, Stara. Wiser than all, you knew that love for a body must die, but love for the spirit lives for ever. I wanted your soul, and you, knowing it, have given."
He paused, crept closer, and stood looking down.
"You beautiful thing," he whispered, "yet, beautiful as you are, I shall be glad when you're hidden away out of sight in the ground for then I shall see the soul whose voice only I now can hear. When will that be, my Star, when will that soul be revealed? To-morrow, yes, to-morrow it shall be, over your grave, when the sun is dead too, and all are gone. Promise me it now, dear, let those dead lips speak for the last time."
"Speak!" He stood towering above her, command in the eyes fixed on the rigid mouth. A gust of wind blew, the lamp flickered, and over the still face a shadow hovered and was gone.
Then through the silent house a mad cry went ringing; the two waiting below started apart, with terror in their eyes; and above a man was on his knees beside the bed, with a dead woman held to his heart, and the scent of crushed lilies rising to his brain.
The minutes passed, and still he knelt there, holding her, and then, slowly raising his head, gazed into the stiffly-smiling face.
"Good-bye, body beloved," he said. "Good-bye, earthly love, and welcome now the spiritual." He rose from his knees, and stood erect, one hand laid on the cold breast, the other raised aloft to heaven.
"Unseen soul of Stara," he breathed, "hear me now. May God's curse strike me, may my limbs rot and wither on my body, may the devil burn and tear me in the Hereafter, if but for a moment my love shall stray from you!"
He stopped, his eyes alight with ecstasy, then, bending down, kissed the dead lips once, and went swiftly out into the star-gemmed night.
CHAPTER XXII