As the last word left her lips she sank back on her pillows, inert, and deathly pale; but El-Râmi, dazed and bewildered though he was, retained sufficient consciousness to understand vaguely what she meant,—he was not to look at her as she lay there,—he was to forget that such a Lilith as he knew existed,—he was to look for another Lilith there—“where the roses are.” Mechanically, and almost as if some invisible power commanded and controlled his volition, he turned sideways round from the couch, and fixed his gaze on the branching flowers, which from the crystal vase that held them lifted their pale-pink heads daintily aloft as though they took the lamp that swung from the ceiling for some little new sun, specially invented for their pleasure. Why,—there was nothing there ... “Nothing there!” he half muttered with a beating heart, rubbing his eyes and staring hard before him, ... nothing—nothing at all, but the roses themselves, and ... and ... yes!—a Light behind them!—a light that wavered round them and began to stretch upward in wide circling rings!
El-Râmi gazed and gazed, ... saying over and over again to himself that it was the reflection of the lamp, ... the glitter of that stray moonbeam there, ... or something wrong with his own faculty of vision, ... and yet he gazed on, as though for the moment all his being were made of eyes. The roses trembled and swayed to and fro delicately as the strange Light widened and brightened behind their blossoming clusters,—a light that seemed to palpitate with all the wondrous living tints of the rising sun when it shoots forth its first golden rays from the foaming green hollows of the sea. Upward, upward and ever upward the deepening glory extended, till the lamp paled and grew dimmer than the spark of a feeble match struck as a rival to a flash of lightning,—and El-Râmi’s breath came and went in hard panting gasps as he stood watching it in speechless immobility.
Suddenly, two broad shafts of rainbow luminance sprang, as it seemed, from the ground, and blazed against the purple hangings of the room with such a burning dazzle of prismatic colouring in every glittering line that it was well-nigh impossible for human sight to bear it, and yet El-Râmi would rather have been stricken stone-blind than move. Had he been capable of thought, he might have remembered the beautiful old Greek myths which so truthfully and frequently taught the lesson that to look upon the purely divine meant death to the purely human; but he could not think,—all his own mental faculties were for the time rendered numb and useless. His eyes ached and smarted as though red-hot needles were being plunged into them, but though he was conscious of, he was indifferent to, the pain. His whole mind was concentrated on watching the mysterious radiance of those wing-shaped rays in the room,—and now ... now while he gazed, he began to perceive an outline between the rays, ... a Shape, becoming every second more and more distinct, as though some invisible heavenly artist were drawing the semblance of Beauty in air with a pencil dipped in morning-glory. ... O wonderful, ineffable Vision!—O marvellous breaking-forth of the buds of life that are hid in the quiet ether!—where, where in the vast wealth and reproduction of deathless and delicate atoms, is the Beginning of things?—where the End? ...
Presently appeared soft curves, and glimmers of vapoury white flushed with rose, suggestive of fire seen through mountain-mist,—then came a glittering flash of gold that went rippling and ever rippling backward, like the flowing fall of lovely hair; and the dim Shape grew still more clearly visible, seeming to gather substance and solidity from the very light that encircled it. Had it any human likeness? Yes;—yet the resemblance it bore to humanity was so far away, so exalted and ideal, as to be no more like our material form than the actual splendour of the sun is like its painted image. The stature and majesty and brilliancy of it increased,—and now the unspeakable loveliness of a Face too fair for any mortal fairness began to suggest itself dimly; ... El-Râmi, growing faint and dizzy, thought he distinguished white outstretched arms, and hands uplifted in an ecstasy of prayer;—nay,—though he felt himself half swooning in the struggle he made to overcome his awe and fear, he would have sworn that two star-like eyes, full-orbed and splendid with a radiant blue as of Heaven’s own forget-me-nots, were turned upon him with a questioning appeal, a hope, a supplication, a love beyond all eloquence! ... But his strength was rapidly failing him;—unsupported by faith, his mere unassisted flesh and blood could endure no more of this supernatural sight, and ... all suddenly, ... the tension of his nerves gave way, and morbid terrors shook his frame. A blind frenzied feeling that he was sinking,—sinking out of sight and sense into a drear profound, possessed him, and, hardly knowing what he did, he turned desperately to the couch where Lilith, the Lilith he knew best, lay, and looking,——
“Ah God!” he cried, pierced to the heart by the bitterest anguish he had ever known,—Lilith—his Lilith was withering before his very eyes! The exquisite Body he had watched and tended was shrunken and yellow as a fading leaf,—the face, no longer beautiful, was gaunt and pinched and skeleton-like—the lips were drawn in and blue,—and strange convulsions shook the wrinkling and sunken breast!
In one mad moment he forgot everything,—forgot the imperishable Soul for the perishing Body,—forgot his long studies and high ambitions,—and could think of nothing, except that this human creature he had saved from death seemed now to be passing into death’s long-denied possession,—and throwing himself on the couch he clutched at his fading treasure with the desperation of frenzy.
“Lilith!—Lilith!” he cried hoarsely, the extremity of his terror choking his voice to a smothered wild moan—“Lilith! My love, my idol, my spirit, my saint! Come back!—come back!”
And clasping her in his arms he covered with burning kisses the thin peaked face—the shrinking flesh,—the tarnished lustre of the once bright hair.
“Lilith! Lilith!” he wailed, dry-eyed and fevered with agony—“Lilith, I love you! Has love no force to keep you? Lilith, love Lilith! You shall not leave me,—you are mine—mine! I stole you from death—I kept you from God!—from all the furies of heaven and earth!—you shall come back to me—I love you!”
And lo! ... as he spoke the body he held to his heart grew warm,—the flesh filled up and regained its former softness and roundness—the features took back their loveliness—the fading hair brightened to its wonted rich tint and rippled upon the pillows in threads of gold—the lips reddened,—the eyelids quivered, the little hands, trembling gently like birds’ wings, nestled round his throat with a caress that thrilled his whole being and calmed the tempest of his grief as suddenly as when of old the Master walked upon the raging sea of Galilee and said to it “Peace, be still!”