To eyes which spake and said: "Sleep, Dreams, and Death;—we are the only gods that answer prayer."
With the faint gleam of the tender evening light there came across the threshold a human form, barefooted, bareheaded, with broken links of golden chains gleaming here and there upon her limbs, with white robes hanging heavily, soaked with dews and rains; with sweet familiar smells of night-born blossoms, of wet leaves, of budding palm-boughs, of rich dark seed-sown fields, and the white flower-foam of orchards shedding their fragrance from about her as she moved.
Her face was bloodless as the faces of the gods; her eyes had a look of blindness, her lips were close-locked together; her feet stumbled often, yet her path was straight.
She had hidden by day, she had fled by night; all human creatures had scattered from her path, in terror of her as of some unearthly thing: she had made her way blindly yet surely through the sweet cool air, through the shadows and the grasses, through the sighing sounds of bells, through the leafy ways, through the pastures where the herds were sleeping, through the daffodils blowing in the shallow brooks;—through all the things for which her life had been athirst so long and which she reached too late,—too late for any coolness of sweet grass beneath her limbs to give her rest; too late for any twilight song of missel-thrush or merle to touch her dumb dead heart to music; too late for any kiss of clustering leaves to heal the blistering shame that burned upon her lips and withered all their youth. And yet she loved them,—loved them never yet more utterly than now when she came back to them, as Persephone to the pomegranate-flowers of hell.
She crossed the threshold, whilst the reeds that grew in the water by the steps bathed her feet and blew together softly against her limbs, sorrowing for this life so like their own, which had dreamed of the songs of the gods and had only heard the hiss of the snakes.
She fell at the feet of Thanatos. The bonds of her silence were loosened; the lips dumb so long for love's sake found voice and cried out:
"How long?—how long? Wilt thou never take pity, and stoop, and say, 'Enough'? I have kept faith, I have kept silence, to the end. The gods know. My life for his; my soul for his: so I said. So I have given. I would not have it otherwise. Nay,—I am glad, I am content, I am strong. See,—I have never spoken. The gods have let me perish in his stead. Nay, I suffer nothing. What can it matter—for me? Nay, I thank thee that thou hast given my vileness to be the means of his glory. He is immortal, and I am less than the dust:—what matter? He must not know; he must never know; and one day I might be weak, or mad, and speak. Take me whilst still I am strong. A little while agone, in the space in the crowds he saw me. 'So soon?' he said,—and smiled. And yet I live! Keep faith with me; keep faith—at last. Slay me now,—quickly,—for pity's sake! Just once,—I speak."
Thanatos, in answer, laid his hand upon her lips, and sealed them, and their secret with them, mute, for evermore.
She had been faithful to the end.
To such a faith there is no recompense, of men or of the gods, save only death. On the shores of the river the winds swept through the reeds, and, sighing amidst them, mourned, saying, "A thing as free as we are, and as fair as the light, has perished; a thing whose joys were made, like ours, from song of the birds, from sight of the sun, from sound of the waters, from smell of the fields, from the tossing spray of the white fruit-boughs, from the play of the grasses at sunrise, from all the sweet and innocent liberties of earth and air. She has perished as a trampled leaf, as a broken shell, as a rose that falls in the public ways, as a star that is cast down on an autumn night. She has died as the dust dies, and none sorrow. What matter?—what matter? Men are wise, and gods are just,—they say."