Just then the Sun stepped royally forth from between the red and gold curtains of the east,--and in that blaze of earth's life- radiance her figure became resplendently invested with vivid rays of roseate lustre that far surpassed the amber shining of the Orb of day! Awed, dazzled, and utterly overcome, he yet strove to keep his straining eyes steadily upon her,--conscious that her smile still blessed him with its tenderness, ... he made a wild effort to drag himself nearer to her, . . to touch once more the glittering edge of her robe ... to detain her one little, little moment longer! Ah! how wistfully, how fondly she looked upon him! ... Almost it seemed as if she might, after all, consent to stay! ... He stretched out his arms with a pathetic gesture of love, fear, and soul-passionate supplication.
"Edris! ... Edris!".. he cried half despairingly. "Oh, by the strength of thine Angelhood have pity on the weakness of my Manhood!"
Surely she heard, or seemed to hear! ... and yet she gave no answer! ... No sign! ... No promise!--no gesture of farewell! ... only a look of divine, compassionating, perfect love, . . a look so pure, so penetrating, so true, so rapturous, that flesh and blood could bear the glory of her transfigured Presence no longer,--and blind with the burning effulgence of her beauty, he shut his eyes and covered his face. He knew now, if he had never known it before, what was meant by "an Angel standing in the sun!" [Footnote: Revelation, chap, xix., 17.] Moreover, he also knew that what Humanity calls "miracles" ARE possible, and DO happen,-- and that instead of being violations of the Law of Nature as we understand it, they are but confirmations of that Law in its DEEPER DEPTHS,--depths which, controlled by Spiritual Force alone, have not as yet been sounded by the most searching scientists. And what is Material Force but the visible manifestation of the Spiritual behind it? ... He who accepts the Material and denies the Spiritual, is in the untenable position of one who admits an Effect and denies a Cause! And if both Spiritual and Material BE accepted, then how can we reasonably dare to set a limit to the manifestations of either the one or the other?
* * * * * * * When he at last looked up, Edris had vanished! He was alone, . . alone on the Field of Ardath, ... the field that was "barren" in very truth, now she, his Angel, had been drawn away, as it seemed, into the sunlight, . . absorbed like a paradise-pearl into those rays of life-giving gold that lit and warmed the reddening earth and heaven!
Slowly and dizzily he rose to his feet, and gazed about him in vague bewilderment. He had passed ONE NIGHT on the field! One night only! ... and he felt as though he had lived through years of experience! Now, the VISION was ended, . . Edris, the REALITY, had fled, . . and the World was before him, . . the World, with all the unsatisfying things it grudgingly offers, . . the World in which Al-Kyris had been a "City Magnificent" in the centuries gone,--and in which he, too, had played his part before, and had won fame, to be forgotten as soon as dead! Fame! ... how he had longed and thirsted for it! ... and what a foolish, undesirable distinction it seemed to him now!