We were sitting over our after-dinner cigars, my host, Gustav Berençy, and myself, when the conversation touched on love. Without pausing to consider the effect of the question or its evident infringement of guest-right, I boyishly asked him why he had never married.

Gustav Berençy had been the friend of my grandfather. They had known each other in Paris in their youth. I remembered hearing my grandfather say that Berençy was not only the handsomest, but the most distinguished man he had met. Looking out upon the luxurious park-setting of his seaside home, I could not help wondering why he had always lived alone.

As I asked the question, I saw that the eyes looking into mine were dimmed for a moment, as if by a veil of grief.

“I am married,” he replied; “not by the law of man, but by something more sacred—the law of the heart, which is God’s law.”

“I beg your pardon,” I hastened to make reply, repenting of the ill-timed question. “I had not heard of your marriage, nor indeed,” I added, “of your wife’s death.”

“No, of course not,” was the answer, “because I do not know myself whether she is alive or dead. In all these years I have not been able to tell. She is here with me, in the great room there above,” indicating with his hand a wing of the house.

“I do not believe I understand,” I murmured awkwardly, trying to hit upon a fitting answer.

“Very likely you do not, because I do not.” Grief like a shadow flitted across his face. For the moment it looked aged and strangely weary.

“Of course you do not understand, because I do not. For fifty years she has been there—in that room. For fifty years my heart has not wavered in its allegiance to her, and yet I do not know, as I have told you, whether she is alive or dead.”

We sat in silence, while my host looked reminiscently out across the sea, as if somewhere in its spaces he sought the mystery’s solving. A sensation of fear swept over me, which, however, I controlled upon the instant. I was ashamed of my folly. This genial, courtly gentleman was not mad. In the eyes that looked into mine there was none of the maniac’s frenzy. On the contrary, they were gently meditative, and pregnant with thought and grief.

“No,” he said, reminiscently, lighting a fresh cigar, whose white smoke in the gentle evening floated up and blended aureole-like with the thick whiteness of his hair, “no, I do not mind telling you why I have never married, as the world puts it. It is a strange story. I doubt if you will believe it. But you are leaving on the morrow, and I shall never see you again. Besides, I am old, you know. I am eighty.”

With a sad smile he waved aside my polite demurrer. “Fifty years is long enough to keep a secret, is it not?” he continued. “And it might be well in after years for some one to know the truth. It might help her.”

Involuntarily my thoughts flew to the great silent room above, where for fifty years the woman had lain who was neither alive nor dead. Little did I guess what was housed there, as my heart beat eagerly with anticipation.

“I was born, as you know, in France,” said my host. “My mother died at my birth. My childhood was spent in a monastic school on the gloomy coast of La Bas Bretagne. There I did not see much childish merriment, as you may imagine. Shortly after graduating, when the subject was being discussed as to whether or not I, the younger son, should take holy orders—and at that time of my impressionable youth I was not greatly averse to the idea, so accustomed had I become to monastic discipline—my father and my brother died, leaving me heir to the name and fortune. Thus duty, rather than inclination, kept me in a world of which at that time I knew nothing.

“Finding the loneliness of the old home unendurable, I went to Paris. There I saw something of life. When at length dissipation palled upon me, I gave myself over to study and to art. It was then that I met your grandfather. Finally, I determined to make the grand tour, which in those days was de rigueur for young men of wealth and position. I sauntered across Europe, pausing wherever caprice seized me, idled carelessly across Asia, dallying with my art the while, reached its eastern coast, and found myself confronted by the great Pacific. Here, not knowing what else to do, but without a definite goal in view, I took passage for a cruise among the islands of Polynesia. Some months later, when I had satisfied my curiosity in regard to the South Seas, just after leaving the Austral Isles, a typhoon struck us and we were wrecked upon an outlying coral reef. The steamer was virtually cut in two. The entire crew were drowned with the exception of the first mate, one sailor, and myself.

“We were swept by the fury of the waves upon a high white beach, where a group of natives who had seen the wreck were waiting for the storm to subside, with the intention of plundering the ship. I found that we had merely exchanged one form of death for another and a crueler one. We were seized, bound hand and foot, and thrown upon the ground to await the tribe’s decision of our fate upon the morrow. That night, while I lay awake wondering what the outcome would be, a young native woman, whose sinewy strength had caught my eye during the day, slipped up to where I lay alone at a distance from the others, and with incredible swiftness cut the thongs that bound me. Putting her finger to her lips significantly, she motioned me to follow. One fate was as bad as another, if they all meant death, and I did not hesitate.

“She went across the island, walking so swiftly that it was all that I could do to keep up. Not once did she look back, or seem to think of me. She went straight on, as if impelled by fear. I have no idea how far we walked. When at length she paused with a gesture that made me know that the journey was at an end, the day was not far off. We had crossed the island, and again the sea lay before us.

“The shore was different here. It was repellent and stern, like the coast of La Bas Bretagne which I had known in my gloomy childhood. Rocks sloped in sharp declivity to the water, which looked threatening and black.

“Going up to one of the rocky walls, she pointed to an opening beneath, and went in a little way, motioning me to follow. There I saw a stairway hewn from the living rock, and descending into the bowels of the earth. Although it seemed at first glance to be perpendicular, it sloped slightly toward the water, at whose edge we had entered, so I knew that whatever pathway lay beyond must lead beneath the sea.

“She crouched down upon the stair beside me and, stretching out one long bare arm, pointed down, down, down—once, twice, thrice—meaning that there I must go. Then she took from her back a bag-shaped basket and handed it to me. In it were food and drink.

“Like a whirr of yellow swords, the first sun-rays pierced the sky. As if frightened to see the day so soon, she bounded up the stairs and was gone. To go back meant death; to go on meant I knew not what. But the chance of a life hung in the balance, so I went on.

“The stairs led downward between smooth walls of rock. How far I do not know. I counted the steps until I could count no longer. My brain grew dizzy and refused to work. I sat down and buried my face in my hands to recover poise. I got up and went on, and again my brain refused to count the infinite steps. Again I had to give it up.

“The opening above, which for a time shed light plentifully upon me, became a distant pin-point, then vanished, and inky blackness surrounded me. I should have felt like one buried alive, had it not been for the fresh air that swept between the perpendicular walls of this canal-way.

“But what awaited me at the bottom? Was it water, black and silent and of fathomless depth—impassable, mysterious water that had never reflected the stars or the sun? Was I to find myself upon the edge of an abyss whose depth I could sense but could not estimate?

“What torturing fear and suspense did I not suffer, as I descended that frightful stairway! Suppose my foot slipped and I should fall! What then! But she, my guide of the night, had motioned that I was to follow the stairway. She had not crossed the island merely to bring about my death. It was her intention to save me. I must have faith in her. There was no other way. I summoned fresh courage and crept down the blackness.

“I lost all account of time as hours go. But judging by my weariness and hunger when I reached the level, I think I must have put in a good part of a day in descending that frightful stairway. At the bottom I found myself in a smooth and level road enclosed between walls of granite.

“But the silence and the darkness—how can I tell you what they were? Such silence drives men mad. The darkness was like velvet in its black impenetrableness. It seemed to fall upon my face and stifle me. Nothing disturbed the silence. Even the wind slipped noiselessly through this grave of granite. And it had come so far that it had freed its wings of the scents of the world of light, of the sea and of the earth. No message from the world above came here. Not a sound broke the silence. From the walls of barren rock no dust clods fell to tell of the ceaseless, weaving life of the earth. Adown their sides no water tinkled. Along the road there was not even the friendly whirr of a dried leaf blown by the wind. Nothing! Nothing!

“After I had traveled for a time and the silence had heaped its leaden weight upon me, I shrieked. I could restrain myself no longer. I cried out with all the strength of lung that I possessed, and the granite walls sent back a million, broken-voiced echoes to beat about my ears.

“For days I traveled on like this, pausing only to eat and sleep. I had lost reckoning of time, of night, of day. I heard only the measured sound of my own steps. I do not know how many days and nights had passed like this, when I found that the road was leading upward. It became narrower and steeper. I brushed the rock walls as I walked; I could scarcely squeeze between them. I did not fear. The sound of my steps had dulled my brain. Darkness had paralyzed the power to think.

“Above my head the roof lowered till I could no longer stand erect. I fell upon my knees and crept forward. The wind changed; it freshened. I thought it brought a scent of the sea. Suddenly thick leaves barred the way. I brushed through them, and the star-splendid circle of a tropic night swept into view.

“I was in the garden of a spacious residence that crowned an elevation. Below me a white city lay, and around and beyond the sea. How I drank in the air! How I rejoiced in the sleepy rustle of leaves and grass, and in the regained face of the earth!

“The city which presented itself to my eyes was arranged in the form of a wheel, whose hub was the dwelling in the garden where I stood. From the dwelling the streets radiated like spokes, and at the end of each, terminating at the island’s edge, shone the sea. Around the eminence spread a circular park of considerable breadth, adorned with flowers and statues. Around this lay a smooth wide road, bordered at regular intervals with slender palms, whose leaves in the windless night were motionless. Opposite, the city streets began, and each was headed by a building of great beauty, so that beyond the park and the roadway rose a circular sweep of noble buildings. At regular distances from the central starting-point, each street was interrupted by a small circular space of greensward, and these, uniting, made a driveway around the city.

“I chose at random one of the paths that intersected the garden and followed it. Since I was the toy of chance, I determined to resign myself bravely. After a detour the path led toward the dwelling, blended with one of its marble walks, and ended at the foot of a staircase. I climbed the stairs and entered an uncovered corridor of white marble. After walking to the end, I found it closed by a smooth and rounded stone. I touched it. It swung open, enfolding and sweeping me within its circle, and then closed silently behind me. Impenetrable draperies of silk hung in front of me, brushing my face. I parted them and entered the strangest room I ever saw.

“It was long and of unusual height. The top was uncovered and let in the tropic night. Around the edge of the top of the walls a rim of opal glass projected, upon which a glass ceiling was folded back, to be used in case of need. There were no pictures in the room, nor were there decorations or adornment of any kind. The four walls were hung uniformly in curtains of heavy white silk, which fell in straight folds to the floor.

“There was no air moving. Indeed, I remembered the night outside to have been singularly windless. Yet these white curtains shivered and swayed with a sibilant and silken murmur. Across their surface gold lines and figures swept. An endless chain of golden phantoms girdled the spacious chamber. From the walls bright forms leaped with a burst of light, and then faded back to whiteness. Round and round swept a glittering, changing pageant, impalpable and soundless. Sometimes the gold within the witch-wrought silk blazed forth until the air gleamed with yellow light that dimmed the stars. Anon it paled to such a vague misty radiance as engirdles a winter moon. But always there was change and light and motion and the rustle of swayed silk. If I examined the curtains closely, if I took them up in my hands, I found that they were colorless and uniformly white. But if I let them fall again, and stepped a foot away to look at them, gold light and flashing form leaped out to startle me.

“There were times when the gold wall-light faded and a dim brilliancy took its place. Occasionally, too, a silver light inspirited the restless curtains, pallid frost-shine filled the room, and horizontal lines of silver swept round the walls. When the silver lines grouped themselves into form and being, it was as if lustrous spirits danced airily a ghost dance of joy, now flashing for an instant into vivid life, now paling and fading into silver mist that still retained their gracious contours.

“There was no furniture save a long, narrow, bed-like pedestal or support of ivory, which stood in the center of the room. Upon this rested a mammoth sickle likewise of ivory, formed like the new moon, and within its hollow curve there lay—how shall I tell you!—was it a woman wrapped in lustrous gauze, or was it a mammoth opal that bore a woman’s form? Standing beside the figure and looking down, I could not tell. Beneath the pallid surface colors glowed like tint of flesh with jewels upon it. Again, they seemed to be only the fiery flash of an opal’s heart, and the surface became icily cold.

“I discovered plainly once or twice the long, noble lines of a figure relaxed as if in sleep. Within the white stone floated the gracious semblance of a woman, yet far away and insubstantial, like colors seen in a dream. Sometimes I thought the figure breathed, but by the light of those moving curtains I could not tell. They kept up such a tremor of shifting brightness that my own body became unreal and no longer seemed to belong to me. They dazzled my senses and broke my chain of reasoned thinking. I was adrift with nothing to guide me. When at length I turned from contemplation of the mysterious figure to find again, if possible, the place of exit, in the wall-labyrinth of weaving light, some power which I could not but obey compelled me to pause on a sudden and look back.

“There, standing upright by the moon’s ivory horn, was the opal woman. The tangling gauze which covered her—which I had not dared to touch to find if it were gauze or the smooth cold surface of a stone—had slipped to her feet, where it billowed white like foam. She was taller than the average woman and more slender, yet withal muscularly built and round. Hers was the body of Pallas.

“An apron-like corselet of flexible gold, woven in open-work squares, fitted her smoothly, falling evenly to her feet, but opened to the waist on either side. Beneath this from the waist downward fell something silken and white, softening the sharp outline of the gold. In each little open-work square of the corselet hung a pink gem, and between her breasts was set a ruby.

“Her hair, which was thick and of a bronze color, was arranged in great coils on either side of her head, completely covering her ears. In the center of each coil shone a ruby that matched in size and color the one between her breasts. From these rubies, and attached to them, extended a net of tiny pearls, covering her hair and holding it securely in place.

“So absorbed was I in contemplation of her person, that I forgot that word was due from me. When at length I lifted my eyes to hers, it was as if along with the conquest of my senses the conquest of my mind had been completed. They seemed to enfold and sweep me within a sea of light where all things were foreign to my will.

“Notwithstanding her strange and fantastic costuming, which at once revealed and enhanced the beauty of her body, I knew that this was no vain coquette. This was not a woman to find pleasure in vulgar admiration. Her costume I felt to be the result of some ideal of life, of beauty, which was the ruling passion of her mind. Calmly and in silence we looked at each other. In my face surprise and admiration struggled. She, however, was undisturbed and looked back at me serenely.

“Even then, before a word had been exchanged between us, I felt that her life and her ideal of life were altogether dissimilar to my own, that mentally we were the opposite each of the other. Within her I sensed unsoundable depths of peace and calm, which had their origin in some mental possession to which I was an alien. I measured then the abyss that lay between us.

“She was as richly colored and as gorgeous as a canvas, yet in her bearing there was nothing that hinted of pride or self-consciousness. I shall never forget that first glimpse of her. The picture is printed indelibly upon my brain, despite the years that have intervened—so vividly, indeed, that nothing has been able to dim it. For me it has dulled all other visions. Judge of it by the fact that I had known more or less well the beauties of Paris, and that I was accustomed to the luxurious gowning of the French city. It was only a few seconds that we stood there, and yet—so vivifying is the power of beauty—it was time enough for a world of fancies to sweep my brain.

“Her eyes were two flowers set within the petaled pallor of her face. Wide, straight-fronting eyes of chastest blue they were, whose vivid vitality was softened by an inner and a spiritual flame. Her face symbolized the dream-white city which I had seen outside in the night. And the changing light-splendor of that wondrous room was caught up and concentrated there. As I stood looking at her, a thousand vague and vanishing glimpses of remembered loveliness came back to haunt me. There was something about her that shut off thought connection with the active world of fact, and set one adrift among the pages of the painters. Despite her slenderness and her purely womanly beauty she was strong and masterful. She suggested the “virile note of great art.”

“In silence I stood and waited for her to speak. In a voice whose calmness was like the azure flame within her eyes, she said:

“‘You were not going away, were you? Stay and be my guest. Besides, you know, you cannot go. There is no way.’

“‘Nothing could give me greater pleasure than to be your guest—for a time,’ I added.

“‘For a time?’

“‘Yes; then I must go back to Europe, to my home—to France.’

“‘Home? Yes, yes; of course—but how can you! You are in the Opal Isles.’

“‘And where are they?’

“A strange look crossed her face, but so swiftly that I could not tell whether it was perplexity or grief.

“‘The Opal Isles—they—they—are in the center of the shoreless sea where the white wave circles. And I am Asra.’

“‘But there are steamers, of course; I can—’

“‘Never mind to-night. That can wait, can it not?’ She touched a hidden spring that summoned a servant. ‘The blue room.’ Then, turning to me, she said: ‘He will give you clothing suitable to our life and climate. Good night.’

“‘Good night,’ I repeated in a daze.

“After nearing the curtain behind which the servant had disappeared and stood waiting, I looked back. Asra lay silent and white, as I had first seen her, between the pale crescent’s ivory horns. Again she seemed to be not a woman, but a gigantic opal, beneath whose surface a rainbow slept. The curtains had begun their sibilant whispering again, and from them leaped gold phantoms in a dance of joy. Nearer and nearer to the ivory moon they circled. They formed a glittering cordon about it, weaving of bright motion a visible song of sleep. When the long curtains fell behind me, I thought: ‘Perhaps it has all been a dream,’ I did not know. I could not tell.

“‘This is the guest-room,’ the servant said, breaking in upon my reverie. ‘It tells of the supremacy of the sea. Here are your clothes. Good night.’

“The room was similar to the one I had left. Like it, it was roofless. Like it, too, it was walled in white silk. Within the silk slumbered not gold and silver, but the mysteries of the sea. I saw depth on depth of translucent water of every varying shade, running the entire gamut of blues and greens, within which gem-winged fish, slim silvery serpents, and strange iridescent sea-life swam. It was as if I looked through leagues of water, as one looks across a level prairie. Sometimes the water was blue and warm and pierced by sunlight. Again it was black-green and angry. Sometimes a cold light shivered this soundless ocean, a great wave came rolling in, crested with pale foam the color of fear. At the moment when it seemed ready to break and shed its tumbling waters over me, it vanished and the white silk trembled crisply. I remembered what Asra had said of the white wave that circles the shoreless sea. The servant, too, had spoken of the supremacy of the sea. I felt that in both expressions there was concealed a threat, or at least a deeper meaning. Unbidden came the thought that perhaps the Opal Isles and the people who dwelled within them were somehow at the mercy of the sea.

“When I stretched myself out upon the narrow ivory bed in the center of the room, I still continued to watch the curtains, in the dim wonder of approaching sleep. I was conscious of their beauty and their magic, but I no longer felt any desire to solve a mystery where all was mystery. As I fell asleep I wondered if I, too, would be transformed into an opal. Why not? Are we not all opals by day and night, white flesh opals beneath whose surface flashes the flame of imagination?

“When I went downstairs the next day dressed in a white tunic worn after the manner of the Greek costume, I found that I had slept the greater part of the day. On the way a servant met me and led me to a room where Asra awaited me. She wore the wonderful costume of the evening before. The sight of her brought back the golden phantoms of which she seemed to be an embodied one. I wondered if, when I approached her, she would vanish and the pallor of space confront me. I had ceased to trust the testimony of my senses. But she stood there calmly smiling, the swinging pink corselet gems swaying with the movement of her breath.

“When I went up to her, she held out her hand frankly and wished me good morning. I was more surprised to find that she was real, that she did not vanish at my approach, than if, upon the instant, a dozen phantoms had leaped to take her place. The little hand within my own was warm and white. Here was the first reality. In gratitude I bent over it. As I lifted my head, bright sunlight swept in from the open side of the room and swathed her about like a robe. Color became sound. I saw then their relationship to fearlessness and joy.

“With the new clothes I put on a new life—a lighter, freer, happier life. The black-robed world which I had known seemed far away. Suddenly it seemed to have been a sort of slavery. I saw it fettered with restraints and prejudices. I saw it bowed of back and weary. I drew a deep breath as of one pleasantly released, as if prison doors had opened and shown me light.

“Laughing, Asra came to where I stood and clasped upon my upper arm a bracelet of opals.

“‘Now you are a subject of the Opal Isles! Now there is no retreat.’

“I looked down upon the glittering gems. Each stone was emitting sparklets of cold green light, as if in anger at me, an interloper. While I was watching almost in fear its malevolent shine, a servant entered and asked Asra if she wished to drive as usual at that hour. She looked toward me questioningly.

“‘Nothing could give me greater pleasure,’ I replied, to the unuttered question in her eyes. ‘I should like to see the city by day.’

“As we drove along, I saw that there were other cities and other islands, a dozen or more perhaps. They had been hidden from me the evening before by the luminousness of the night, which had made them a part of the distance. Between the islands little red-sailed boats fluttered, but nowhere was the long, black smoke-ribbon of a steamer to be seen.

“‘Where are the Opal Isles?’ I questioned, turning to Asra. ‘I never heard the name before. I’m sure I never dreamed of cities of white marble on the other side of the earth.’

“I told you last night,’ she replied evasively, ‘that they are in the center of the shoreless sea, where the white wave circles.’

“I fancied then, as I looked out across the shining water, that something white and ominous like foam bounded the far horizon. She followed my glance. When again she looked toward me, I thought that within her eyes I read fear, but the look vanished as quickly as it came, and the old serenity took its place.

“‘That does not tell me where I am—“in the center of the shoreless sea”—that only helps to lose me the more.’

“‘What difference does it make where one is, if one is happy? How could happiness be situated upon a map!’

“‘But are there no steamers, no seafaring vessels?’ I insisted, looking out beyond the islands where the smooth water stretched to the horizon, unfurrowed of prow or oar.

“‘Of course not! Why should there be? When one reaches the Land of the Ideal, where everything is exactly as one would have it, is it reasonable to suppose that any one would wish to go away?’

“‘Very true. But how do they get here?’

“‘How did you?’

“‘But I mean others. How do they get here?’

“‘There is only one road that can lead to a land like this. They who are fit find it.’

“‘But do not all roads lead two ways?’

“‘All but this one.’

“‘I yield. There is no use in questioning the Sphinx.’

“We were driving through streets lined with marble buildings and bordered on either side by smooth parkways. At frequent intervals along the greensward were statues, decorative urns, shrubs, and flowers. Each building, whatsoever its size, extent, or purpose, was a little work of art and formed a helpful part of the general grouping. Nowhere was there anything ugly or unsightly. Nowhere was there a false color or an immature line. It was as if the people had worked together with the single aim of making their city faultless. They seemed to know that ugly things are immoral.

“On the larger buildings I noticed that the decorations were frequently suggestive of the sea, as if in some remote age the city had risen from its depth. Carved upon the marble were shells, fish, trailing vines and weeds whose graceful sinuosities told of the swinging of tides. When we crossed one of the long spoke-like streets which swept from the center to the edge of the island, I saw that at its end, upon the turf that met it at right angles, there was a group of statuary. Asra told me that similar groups stood at the end of each street where it touched the sea. This group represented dancing nymphs pausing suddenly in the last wild round of some ecstatic dance, uplifted to toe-tips by motion-mad draperies, with muscles tense, up-strained to slimmest height, heads flung back, holding to their lips, trumpet-wise, fluted shells, through which they were flinging defiance at the deep. This picture stuck in my memory. It was like a pin prick of fear. In the smiling water it made me see a menace and a danger.

“There were buildings in the city which had a look of great age. They were yellow and mottled and streaked faintly with fine lines of gray. Their architecture was strange. It was simple and dignified, but as alien as the flora of an unknown land. The light fell upon these ancient buildings tenderly, with none of the harsh obtrusiveness of unshaded white. It was like a retrospective thought where unpleasant things seen in the flattering mirror of the past have lost their harshness. High above the city rose the grace of palms, and in all directions shone blue water.

“Then began a life which lasted too brief a time and which I have never ceased to regret; a life where all the standards of living were reversed. How shall I tell you?

“Beauty, not gold, was king!—the intelligent appreciation, the creation of beauty. They called it the spirit of life made visible. There was no religion, no church; in their stead they had placed fearlessness and joy and kindness. If you can imagine what the result would be to take away wealth as the objective goal of a nation’s endeavor, you will gain an idea of what I mean.

“Gradually in our walks and drives, or in our sails upon the water, Asra instructed me in the new life, until I was beginning to forget the old. At least I had reached the point where there was no desire of return. I will not enter into tiresome details of the island people and their ways, because the most important part is what came later and its effect upon my life.

“Perhaps two weeks had elapsed since my arrival in the Opal Isles when Asra asked me to visit with her a little rocky islet, the farthest and most outlying of the Opal group, whence a fine view was to be had of the island cities, and the great sea to westward. At her suggestion, we took along a hamper of food, that we might spend the day if we wished. I managed the red-sailed boat, and we went alone.

“Rocky and grim the island rose from the water, like the summit of a mountain whose base had been submerged by the tides. Near the shore on one side, opposite the landing, stood a graceful little pavilion, a place of rest and shelter from the too direct rays of the sun. Within were seats and a table.

“At one end of the pavilion the rock walls were near and rose high above its roof. In the wind-sheltered crevices an airy blue flower grew that resembled the anemone. There were occasional ferns, too. Other vegetation there was none. The shore was strewn with dull, copper-colored seaweeds of sharply indented edges. They resembled hairy tentacles, long eager sea-arms reaching from the deep to drag us down.

“Asra wore the dress in which I had first seen her, the gold open-work corselet, with the swinging pink stones and giant rubies. As I looked at her, the light struck a flame from the ruby above her heart, and I noticed that its color was that of the crimson sail. I remembered how I had watched it upon the misty water, and how I had thought that it was the color of life, when life is lived bravely.

“‘I am glad of your mood to-day,’ she said, divining my thoughts. ‘Why can you not always be like this? Why can you not always be dominant and fearless? That is the way to live. I do not understand you when you are sad.’

“‘Nor I myself.’

“‘Why is it then?’

“‘The mystery of things, perhaps. I do not know exactly. Perhaps it is because I wonder where I am.’

“‘What possible difference can place make if we are happy?’

“‘Perhaps it is because I fear the day will come when I must go away.’

“A deep light shone in her eyes. The thought flashed through my brain that here was such a face as dwells forever in the depth of our ideals.

“‘But why need you go? What is there in the old world that you want? Stay here with me.’

“‘Do you mean it, Asra?’ I cried, all but smothered with the joy that burst upon my senses.

“‘Yes, why not?’

“‘Then this life is mine forever!’ I exclaimed, hastening toward her, while she waved me gently away.

“‘To the fearless all things belong.’

“‘Asra!’ I cried, the wild joy still beating in my brain.

“Again she waved me away. ‘See!’ She spread a paper before me which she had taken from a slender chatelaine swinging from her waist. ‘This is the permission for me to choose whom I wish—you if I wish.’

“‘And you do wish, Asra?’

“‘Otherwise would I have told you? It depends upon you. There are conditions. You must banish fear, doubt, sadness, forever. Do you understand? If you were unable, it would mean ruin—such ruin as you do not know. You must be sure of yourself.’

“‘Anything that lies within my power I will do. But is this within my power? Can I be sure? Can I know?’

“I looked out over the sea. The broad light fell full upon it, and a myriad merry eyes looked back at me. Its voice reached me. I listened. The meaning was unmistakable. It was the undying laughter of the pagan gods. At night, too, I remembered, its voice had reached me; and I shivered to think that it was a dirge then, that it sang an eternal dirge. And between these two voices of nature—the two voices that call forever, the laughter and the dirge—what was there? The ideal! Yes, the ideal, desirable and unattainable, forever, between the laughter and the dirge.

“‘Now you have reached it!’ she exclaimed, breaking in upon my thinking. ‘You were sure to. Now you will conquer. Put the other world behind you. Annihilate it with your fearlessness. Be mine!’

“Her face inspirited me. Courage, like wine, strengthened my veins. I felt that I had been lifted into a high and rarefied element. The moments became lyric and sped onward with the lilt of song.

“‘I will not fail you. I will live with you upon your height of joy. I will prove that I am worthy.’

“I clasped her in my arms, and the face which was like the realization of a dream was near to mine.

“‘I knew it!’ she exclaimed, disengaging herself gently from my embrace.

“For the moment I moved in an element of lightness and joy, freed from fear, superstition, and corroding care. I began to realize that joy is the most important thing in the world, the most pregnant of possibility and power. I saw a new world, a new sky, and a new earth. Beneath her mighty touch, I saw as if for the first time the face of the morning upon the level water. I looked across it. My fancy peopled with triumphant phantoms the immeasurable distances that lay beyond. Worlds on worlds sprung up in space over which joy floated like a victorious banner and whose roadways were threaded by the gleaming feet of love. I saw victorious and triumphant things; white arms up-flung, red lips that shrilled in song; bright helmet plumes blown back like flame; and between them the white, glorious face of the woman I loved. Joy had strung my mind to a finer pitch. It had given it temporarily the strength and the suppleness of steel. Like a thin and glittering sword of unbreakable metal, joy stood, unsheathed of grief and formidable forever, between me and the destructive forces of life. Nothing now could diminish my power. I had found that for which we are created.

“Wherever the mysterious roads of life might lead, it was joy that waited for me at the end. All the beautiful, unalterable things in whose creation joy had been dominant came thronging to enrich my senses.

“‘You are right. Joy is the greatest thing in the world. It is the alkahest, the universal solvent, in which beauty becomes fluid, and, like a returning tide of ocean, flows in and makes fecund the barren coves and inlets of the soul.’

“‘Put away all that you have known in the past,’ she answered quickly. ‘Forget that there was ever another way of living, another land. Be mine wholly. If you are worthy, the reward will not be slight.’

“‘The past is as if it had not been. It is a tide that has slipped back again into the deep.’

“‘And it has washed away the writing on the sand. Look!’ She pointed to the sea. ‘Like its deep the soul is. Nothing can sully it.’

“As a lark rises in space, its only connection with the dim earth being ribbons of fluted sound, so did my ecstatic vision rise and hold me high above, where petty griefs could not pull me down and where in my focusing point of light I could draw what I wished up unto myself.

“‘I promise, Asra.’

“‘Then I choose you,’ she answered solemnly, a strange new note of warning ringing in her voice.

“I felt as if the horses of the sun had whirled me to the heights of light. Swift air lashed my ears. Glory inundated my senses. I felt the vertigo of happiness. I saw poise beneficently above me then the vision of love—the glittering, gold-cloud vision of love as it is painted by tone in the overture to Lohengrin. When it passed, the elastic swing of my vision, which had attained height sufficient to embrace all things, brought before me, by power of contrast, the black, autumn coast of La Bas Bretagne, as I had seen it in my gloomy childhood. The shore was strewn with rocks, like this one, and, perched upon them, much as was this gay pavilion, stood a church, somber and dark with age. Upon the tower a huge dark crucifix stood, whose black shadow fell far below. I saw again that cold autumnal sea; the slow-swinging ridges of dim water, where the black cross wavered, and between which poised black boats, over whose edges from time to time passed sadly the cold, silent creatures of the sea. The bright vision faded. I fell from my height of joy. It was as if I spun down infinitudes of space, light, like sound, ringing as I went.

“‘Asra, you swept me with you to a dizzy height, where, for a few moments, I saw the splendor of the worlds unfurl. But I cannot keep it. My eyes grow dim; my senses are blurred. A thousand fears assail me. I am afraid of the heights. I cannot live there calmly. I am not equal to it.’

“‘What do you mean?’ Again there was that solemn note of warning that shook my soul.

“‘Do not fail me now. You do not realize what it would mean. You do not dream what would come.’

“Again I saw the cold gray sky of France. The dim water ridges again swung toward me, and upon them lay blackly the shadow of sorrow. Doubts and fears like a demon army fell upon me. They overcame me; they crushed me.

“‘Asra, what of that dark ocean whose name is death?’

“‘What of that!’ she replied in scorn. ‘I do not fear it. Put all such thoughts behind you. Be brave! Let us intoxicate ourselves with living, with fancies, dreams, exquisite sensations. The present cannot last. Therefore make it perfect. Since Life is a guest whom we may not ignore if we would, does it not behoove us to be royal entertainers?’

“No more could that impassioned voice arouse me, nor the eyes, that filled my soul with light. The earth had claimed me. Supinely I fell back upon its breast. Never again could she lift me to the heights.

“‘I am not worthy of you, Asra. Can you forgive me?’ I said, folding her in my arms and pressing my lips to hers.

“When my lips touched hers, a change passed over her. She was standing close beside me, and yet she seemed to be distant, to have moved away.

“‘Oh, the folly! Why did you not listen to me! Why did you not bury yourself in your dream and forget! Why did you not content yourself with looking! There are things made only to dream of—that vanish at the touch. Good is not good until it is useless,’ she added enigmatically.

“‘The ideal must never be reached. Look!’ Wildly her voice rang out.

“I followed the direction of her eyes and her pointing hand.

“‘The white wave!’

“The sky-line was blurred beneath on-rushing water, white and thunderous and fearful.

“‘What does it mean, the white wave?’

“‘Did I not warn you? Come, save yourself while there is time!’

“She unclasped the bracelet from my arm and flung it down. She led me toward the rock that towered at the end of the pavilion. After walking some distance around its projection upon the sand, we came to a dark and narrow opening. There, handing me the food hamper, she said: ‘Go straight ahead! Go! Go!’

“‘But you—will you not go too? What of you?’

“‘No, no! No matter. There is not time to tell you. Do as I wish. Go quickly.’

“I looked across the sea. I saw the towering water. Its icy breath fanned my face. Its pale crest reached the zenith. Sprayed foam beads fell from it like marbles and dotted the blue ahead. The red sail of our boat fluttered in fear. Without pausing to think or to reason, I picked Asra up in my arms and darted with her into the black opening. It was the work of an instant. There was not time for word or argument.

“No sooner had we crossed the dividing line than, with a crash, a great rock suspended above the entrance like a door fell and shut us off from sight of the island and the glittering wave that rolled thundering on. There was no retreat. There was nothing to do but to go on. I had come from the darkness and I was plunged back into it again. Neither light nor sound reached us. Impenetrable night surrounded us. The air however was fresh, as if it had connection with the outside. Beneath my feet a smooth roadway of stone led downward, the declivity being sharp.

“A change had taken place in Asra, which the excitement of the first few moments had prevented me from noticing. Her body had become light as air, and cold and stiff. I dreaded to confront the fact and acknowledge to myself what had happened. It was no longer the body of a woman. It was no longer my beloved, no longer Asra, whom I held in my arms. It was the opal which I had first seen between the moon’s ivory horns. What a grief was this! What sorrow filled my soul! It was useless to cry out or remonstrate. The change which I had seen upon the night of my arrival had taken place again. I consoled myself by thinking that, with day-light and the earth’s surface regained, she would be herself once more. If it had not been for this thought, I could not have gone on. I should not have tried for life. What would there have been to live for! Why could I not reasonably expect this? I had seen it happen before. Almost beneath my eyes the miracle had taken place.

“Lifting the mammoth opal to my shoulder, the easier to carry it, I sped swiftly down the smooth stone way, hoping every moment for a ray of light to give promise of an exit, however far away. When I reached the bottom of the declivity and found level stone beneath my feet, there was still no sign of light, and I was so weary that I put my burden down and slept. When I awoke, I ate some of the food in the hamper and went on.

“I must have been deep within the heart of the earth. No sound nor scent of living thing came here. Yet the air was fresh and free from the damp smell of prisoned places. This was the thing that gave me hope. Somewhere, not far away, it had met an outer current and purified itself. The wind blew in my face. It seemed to come from the direction in which I was going. It was not my own motion that caused it. When I paused, I could still feel it blowing gently in my face. That gave me heart, and was the one foundation for hope. Somewhere in the darkness there was an exit through which the fresh air came.

“My other journey beneath the earth was as nothing in point of time in comparison with this. Had it not been for the plentiful supply of food within the hamper, I must have perished before I reached the surface. As it was, I suffered greatly. I was exhausted. My feet were blistered with walking on unyielding stone, and my arms were stiff with the strain of holding securely that strange burden. Hope was still high in my heart that I should see the miracle wrought anew and Asra rise from her opal sleep. Otherwise I should have cared for nothing. Life would not have been worth the saving.

“It was night when I came to the surface of the earth, or, at least, darkness had fallen. I found myself upon a tiny island, no larger than a dot upon the water, evidently a coaling station in the South Pacific. There was but one building, a keeper’s cottage, and over it floated the flag of France.

“The evening was not old, for the tide, which indications proved to have been low that day, was creeping in. I did not pause to think or to be thankful for my safety. I thought only of Asra. I was in a fever of excitement to find out if my hope was to be realized. Would she awake from her sleep and speak to me? Would our old life go on as before? Carefully I deposited the precious burden upon the ground. The moon was a slender sickle of gold and lent but little light. However, there was a luster that came from the water, and the southern stars were bright. By their aid I hoped to see.

“Asra was wrapped in a thick white tissue. I remembered that it had the same billowy whiteness as the covering that slipped and fell down at her feet like foam on the night of my arrival, when I first saw her standing by the moon’s ivory horns. I thrust it aside, tearing it in my haste. Before me lay a radiant opal. From it colors spouted like jets of water in a wonder-park.

“The quick interchange of colors blinded me. I could distinguish nothing, peer as I might. I knelt down and put my face close to the stone in the endeavor to see. Then it was as if a rain of light sprayed my face. It was useless. I could make out nothing. Yet the great stone preserved perfectly the contour of her body. Surely I should be able to see her when that play of color called up by the light combinations of the night subsided. As I stood bravely fortifying my soul with hope, defiant in face of discouragement, the glamour of the old island life we had led together touched me vividly, and for an instant’s space swung me to the heights of joy. The stone grew pale and white. I knelt beside it. Then, plainly in its depth, I saw Asra asleep, in her gold corselet with its little pink gems and giant rubies.

“‘Asra!’ I called. ‘Awake! We are safe now. Awake and speak to me.’

“Peering closely, I saw her smile, else some ray of restless light touched her.

“In memory I saw once more the silk-hung chamber with its golden phantoms, and I grieved to think that I might never see it again.

“‘Asra! The white wave is gone. There is no sign of it anywhere. We are safe. Awake!’

“For answer I heard the sea’s undying pagan laughter. Asra faded away. The stone’s brilliancy revived. The mad dance of spouting colors began. I knew I could not call her back. I flung myself down beside her and buried my face in the sand. In a frenzy of grief I determined to watch until morning. Then, surely, the change I longed for would come. I could not give up hope. Hope meant life. The day would settle it, and as I wished. I lay down beside her and waited for the sun.

“What a night was that! It was the longest I ever knew. At times weariness over-powered me, and I slept to wake with strung nerves. It seemed as if the day would never come. I thought the stars of a dozen nights rose and set. I thought the magic in which I was entangled had hindered the old rotation of day and night. Every change in the night sky was reflected in the stone, as if it were the pulse of night. A wisp of clouds across the zenith, and it was malevolently somber; a freshening breeze swept them away, and fire darted from it.

“The day came, gray and chill, with a pallid mist. I was drenched to the skin, and shivering with cold. Fear, born of weariness, assailed me. The earth-grief fell upon me like a cloak. I ached in every limb. In what a fever of hope and fear did I hang over the stone, waiting for the light to clear sufficiently to see. When it did, I could no longer see the face of Asra, only her gemmed costuming and the dim outlines of her body.

“Then the fear that she would fade away forever all but drove me mad. I forgot hunger, weariness, everything, in the endeavor to see again the face I loved. As I watched in such anxiety as they know who have loved deeply, trembling the while, as if from fever, the sun sent its first level rays across the sea. The light penetrated the stone. There was nothing to hinder me now. I could delude myself no longer. I could see plainly. Asra was not there.

“Beneath the snowy surface I could distinguish a mingled brightness and the long gold lines where her body had been. While I was looking, these, too, melted away in a dance of color. Doubt and fear had killed her. She had warned me, too. She had told me that the result would be something undreamed of.

“If for an instant hope sprang glowing in my heart, I could see her dimly, but when it passed she melted away in a jeweled mist and left me alone. In one telescopic flash of mind I realized the gloom, the barrenness, of the years that were to come. I realized then, in the flower of my youth, that the best of life lay behind me. From what I had known, the paths of life must lead downward.

“Leaving her concealed in the reeds, I went to the house. I had been correct in my supposition that it was a French coaling-station. The keeper was greatly surprised at the presence of a stranger. When I explained how I came, he was more surprised and shook his head doubtfully. He declared that he had never heard of the Opal Isles. He could not explain my presence in any satisfactory way, however, since the only steamer which had been expected for weeks was due that day. When I told him more of the islands, with their twelve white cities, he no longer contradicted me. He said nothing, but he looked at me strangely. He thought that I was mad and feared lest opposition arouse my fury. I knew then that it would be useless to tell of my experience to any one. No one would believe it.

“I saw that the keeper would be relieved to be rid of me. When I asked him for a loan to defray my expenses to Melbourne on the expected steamer, giving only my word in pledge of refunding, he assented readily. He showed a like willingness to oblige me when I asked for a certain wooden chest, some six feet in length, which I had seen out-doors beneath one of the windows, and for which I had no ostensible use. He was willing to do anything to have me off his hands.

“The first thing I did when I reached Melbourne was to cable for money to my attorneys in Paris. When the answer came, I proceeded to hire a steamer and to equip it for a cruise of indefinite length. After procuring the most trustworthy seamen that port afforded, I set out on my quest of the Opal Isles. The captain, an old man whose life had been spent upon southern seas, said that in his youth he had heard of wonderful cities of white marble beyond the last known land. Likewise he said that he had heard that no one could land there, because they floated always out of reach. Others affirmed that they were merely icebergs drifting northward from the polar circle.

“I was glad to leave the low, yellow, sun-baked shores of Australia. I longed for the open sea. After we had steamed out of port and gone some distance, sand blown by a furious wind from that blistering upland desert which makes its interior, fell upon us and dotted the sea like rain.

“Straight to southward we steamed, past Tasmania. As we neared it, I remembered that it was spring in the southern seas—November. Tasmania was pink with orchard bloom. After we passed it and looked back—so different is its southern coast—there was nothing to be seen but towering columns of black basalt.

“Now the roll of the long waves struck us, sweeping always from west to east. Tremendous waves they are, whose length no one may measure. On and on they sweep, unhindered and unchecked, until somewhere to southward they girdle the earth.

“Five days later we sighted New Zealand—a row of white mountains whose bases are buried in yellow gorse. When we came nearer, we saw the cherry blossoms and the dog-roses of an English garden. Then again to southward and out into the long wash of the Australasian waves. Here our steamer disturbed and put to flight a myriad sea-fowl resting idly upon the surface of the water; down-white albatross with wings of jet, and Cape pigeons with checker-board backs. Land was definitely left behind with all that we had known. Before us, like a magic pathway enticing us to follow, stretched the long, shining roadstead of the wind. Swiftly we slipped down it and away toward the Polar seas. At night the Southern Cross flamed bright. At night we saw the vari-tinted stars of a southern zone. We were in a strange world, with a strange sky above us. The sea, too, was strange. Sometimes it was so clear by some little island’s side that we could see the mysteries of the deep. Some times we saw algæ as delicate and finely lined as carven cameos, and sometimes kelp so long it mocked the sea-serpent in its length.

“We coasted past unknown islands, where bright sea-growths blazed on coral reefs. We saw palms that looked as if they sprang from the water, so slender was their foothold in the soil. At times all that we knew of an island was a whiff of fragrance that blew across our faces while we slept, or we rose to find a feathery greenness in the day. Or at dawn we coasted near enough to land to catch a phrase drawled in dull semi-tones, or to see the sun gild sharply the bare body of a woman with black and floating hair. Then we came to barren water where no islands were, turquoise blue and chill, upon whose outer edge the ice-fields lay. Then back to northward. Round and round we swung. Thus we scoured the seas. We became known to every merchantman, to every sailor. At first they thought that ours was a like occupation. When they found out the difference, they looked upon us with disfavor. Stories were circulated. They said we brought misfortune and foul weather. Wrecks and sea tragedies were laid at our door. They confused us with the Flying Dutchman. Gloom settled down upon us. No one escaped it. Even I was losing heart. I found that we may not live other than our fellows. The punishment for being different is not slight.

“Days and days I sat on deck and scanned the horizon with my glass. When weariness overpowered me, a sailor took my place. Nor at night was the watch relaxed. Then, too, a sailor sat ready to lift his glass at call of a ray of light and sweep the sea. Each night when I went to bed, it was with the hope of finding myself beside the blessed islands when I awoke. That failing, I consoled myself with the possibilities of day. My life trembled between hope and disappointment. These were the poles of my narrowed world.

“There was one room in the steamer especially arranged for Asra. No one entered there except myself. It was lighted with brilliancy, that no material aid might be lacking in reading the great stone’s heart. There, after the nerve-racking day on deck, I spent a part of the night, peering into the long gem which lay upon a couch of white.

“It was rarely now, and only under mental stress, that I was able to glimpse the dear face. To do so it was necessary to shut myself off for days from contact with my fellow men and by imaginative effort and strong stimulants key myself to a fictitious joy. Then, for one moment, the fair body in its golden corselet would be visible in all its beauty, and the face smile as if ready to awake from sleep. Nor was this consolation of great duration. It was not long before the strongest and headiest wines failed to have any effect upon me, and I took to drugs. The moments of vision were of slighter duration, the body less distinctly seen, less real, and, it seemed sometimes, less lovely. It was all going from me, all that I had loved. I watched it, but I was powerless to hinder.

“The effect of the drugs failed altogether. There was nothing now that could lift me for an instant to the old height of joy where Asra and I had lived and loved. The strain was telling upon my health. Physical weakness helped to make the moments of vision rarer. Never again, Titan-like, could I live with Asra upon the heights. Weariness and weakness and impotence fell upon me. The earth called me, and held me bound. I could only look at the opal with its heart of flame and dream sadly of what had been. I could see Asra now only in the dream recesses of my brain. And I knew, too, that this power would not last. Old age would blot it out. There was nothing that I could hold and call my own.

“The years of cruising had been futile. They had brought disappointment to my hopes and to my heart the certainty that I should never find the delectable isles. My strength was exhausted. I was worn out with the fruitless quest. I gave it up and came here.

“That room there,” indicating with a wave of his hand an upper wing of the house, “I built for Asra. It is arranged and furnished like the room in which I found her. There she has lain for fifty years and, as I told you, I do not know whether she is alive or dead. That part of the house, as you may have noticed, fronts the sea, that she may hear always what she loved—the undying laughter of the pagan gods.

“It is years and years now since I have seen her. I am old and I have not the strength. I shall never see her again. But I know that she is there—asleep.”

A year later, in a distant city, I picked up a paper and this head-line caught my eye: “The Strangest Will Ever Filed.” It was an account of how one Gustav Berençy, a nobleman of the south of France, had left his wealth to a gigantic opal, which was shaped like a woman’s form.