Thus night grew older, and while Antar and Damma sank into each other's arms, Arvah still heard Rheda calling through her tears, and calling in vain.
3
The white ghosts of the night did not hasten away with the darkness when next morning it slowly went down in the cold west. They remained clinging to the shadows at the edge of the forest, and hovering over the dull river that ran as lead, and seemed to wait for the sun to melt it and let it ripple and laugh like silver and gold in its bed.
Antar came forth weary, and strode through the mist to the water, into which, chill and cheerless though it was, he flung himself. When he regained the bank he shivered, for the spectres of the night had taken possession of his heart, and the world was unhomely and strange to him. Had he been with Rheda, things had been otherwise, for she was still his home and his sanctuary; but he did not know it. He only felt the vague longing of dis-
