“She raised herself, stared after him crouchingly, agony in her face. She stretched out her arms to him, but he did not turn his head. Then, ceding evidently to an overwhelming impulse, she sprang to her feet, darted after him with the speed of a young deer, and flung both her arms passionately about his neck. Once more I saw him ask her the mysterious question, menace in his face. And now she surrendered, clinging to him desperately, tears coursing down her cheeks, her eyes wild, but every fibre of her obviously ready to do his bidding rather than lose him as she nodded her head in frantic assent.
“Once more he spoke, pointing mysteriously across the garden. She drew away from him, her eyes fixed upon his face, her bosom filling as with the long, deep breath of some tragic resolve. He was inexorable. Hopelessly, she prepared to obey, in her attitude the touching dignity of fate accepted since love imposes it, eternal womanhood fulfilling itself in immolation. I felt the tears start to my eyes, although I could not imagine what was the evidently tremendous sacrifice demanded of her. The white-clad man stepped once more into the shadow of the bushes. With one last passionate, yearning look toward him, she moved away. She went crouched, huddled in to herself like a woman who creeps forth to commit a crime.
“Again the scene changed. I was staring at the exterior of the temple in the moonlight. The two great figures by the portal gazed now over an empty courtyard. Only the moon-cast shadows of the trees moved upon its untenanted space. There was a moment of waiting--for I knew not what, but the air was filled with expectation. Then, slinking along the wall, scarcely visible, with halting, furtive step, I saw the girl emerge from the shadows. Warily she came, close against the wall, stopping occasionally in the awful terror of the silence which brooded over everything, moving on again with evidently a fresh effort of highly strung will. Like a ghost she seemed in the moonlight, as she crept up to the giant figure by the portal, peered cautiously into the interior darkness where two yellow flames glimmered. She slipped into the gloom like a pale shadow that flits across the wall.