“Because I cannot see you—because you cannot see me. If I could see you—if you could see me as I am, you would know all—you would understand all.”
“I do see you, Lilith,” he said—“I hold your hand.”
“No—not my real hand”—she said—“Only its shadow.”
Instinctively he looked at the delicate fingers that lay in his palm—so rosy-tipped and warm. Only the “shadow” of a hand! Then where was its substance?
“It will pass away”—went on Lilith—“like all shadows—but I shall remain—not here, not here,—but elsewhere. When will you let me go?”
“Where do you wish to go?” he asked.
“To my friends,” she answered swiftly and with eagerness—“They call me often—I hear their voices singing ‘Lilith! Lilith!’ and sometimes I see them beckoning me—but I cannot reach them. It is cruel, for they love me and you do not,—why will you keep me here unloved so long?”
He trembled and hesitated, fixing his dark eyes on the fair face, which, in spite of its beauty, was to him but as the image of a Sphinx that for ever refused to give up its riddle.
“Is love your craving, Lilith?” he asked slowly—“And what is your thought—or dream—of love?”
“Love is no dream;”—she responded—“Love is reality—Love is Life. I am not fully living yet—I hover in the Realms Between, where spirits wait in silence and alone.”