LILITH A Fantasy Novel By George MacDonald - online book

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Io8                                   LILITH
taking up the bread—but lingered, much desiring to see her face.
Must I go, then ? ' I asked.
' No one sleeps in my house two nights together!' she answered.
' I thank you, then, for your hospitality, and bid you farewell! ' I said, and turned to go.
' The time will come when you must house with me many days and many nights,' she murmured sadly through her muffling.
' Willingly,' I replied.
' Nay, not willingly !' she answered.
I said to myself that she was right—I would not willingly be her guest a second time ! but immediately my heart rebuked me, and I had scarce crossed the threshold when I turned again.
She stood in the middle of the room; her white garments lay like foamy waves at her feet, and among them the swathings of her face : it was lovely as a night of stars. Her great gray eyes looked up to heaven ; tears were flowing down her pale cheeks. She reminded me not a little of the sexton's wife, although the one looked as if she had not wept for thousands of years, and the other as if she wept constantly behind the wrap­pings of her beautiful head. Yet something in the very eyes that wept seemed to say, ' Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.'
I had bowed my head for a moment, about to kneel and beg her forgiveness, when, looking up in the act, I found myself outside a doorless house. I went round and round it, but could find no entrance.
I had stopped under one of the windows, on the point of calling aloud my repentant confession, when a sudden
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