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These passed, the flowery heat of the dim conservatory brought them to Gnulemah's room. The curtain was looped up and the passage clear. Thus first did the wedded pair enter what should have been their bridal chamber, and laid the lifeless body on the nuptial bed. A fair, pure room; the clear walls frescoed with graceful wreaths of floating figures.
The rite was over, the diamond gleamed from Gnulemah's finger, and the priest with uplifted hands had bade man not part whom God had united. Husband and wife gazed at each other with freshness and wonder in their eyes; as having expected to see some change, and anew delighted at finding more of themselves than ever!
In the previous encounter he had retaliated in kind. Would the bitter issue of that self-indulgence not make him wary now? Here was again the murderous lust of power, albeit disguised as love of justice. Had Balder's penitent suffering failed to teach him the truth of human brotherhood, and equality before God? Once again his glance met Gnulemah's, lingered a moment, and then turned away.
Other surface causes no doubt there were, in addition to the hidden one, which was perhaps the most potent of all. A considerable time had passed since Gnulemah's departure, when Balder became aware that he was not alone in the conservatory. His thoughts were all of Gnulemah, and he looked quickly round in expectation of seeing her.
There were still the little wrinkles in the fingers, but time had changed the pristine white to dingy yellow. "Whose hands could have worn them? whose chamber was this?" mused Balder. "Not Gnulemah's; she knows nothing of kid gloves and powder! and these things were in use before she was born. Whose face was reflected in this glass, when those gloves were thrown down here?
They were leaning side to side against the bench, along whose edge Balder had stretched an arm to cushion Gnulemah's head. As he turned to look at her, a dash of sunlight was quivering on her clear smooth cheek, and another ventured to nestle warmly below the head of the guardian serpent on her bosom, for Gnulemah and the sun had been lovers long before Balder's appearance.
Whether or not this were the solution of Gnulemah's mystery, Balder recognized quiet to be his cue towards her. Probably he could not do better than to get the ear of Doctor Hiero, and establish himself upon a footing more conventional than the present one. His next step accordingly was to ask after him by name.
The transcendent cunning on which he had prided himself, as regarded his plan of educating Gnulemah, had amounted to little more than imbecile inaction. As Manetho prostrated himself, and even touched the hem of Gnulemah's robe to his forehead, Balder looked to see her recoil; but she maintained a composure which argued her not unused to such homage.
In the eastern window, through which the earliest sunbeams loved to fall, stood an alabaster altar; on it a chain of faded dandelions. The bed was a lovely nest, the lines flowing in long curves, a barge of Venus for lovers to voyage to heaven in. On a table near at hand lay some embroidered work at which Gnulemah's magic needle had been busy of late.
Might she not learn to abhor the hand which should unveil to her the Gorgon features of fallen humanity? Much has man lost in losing Paradise! Contemplating Gnulemah's entrance into the outer world, Manetho had anticipated her ruin from the flowering of the evil seed which he believed himself to have planted in her. Might not the same result issue from a precisely opposite cause?
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