e roughly cut the words, "ave atque vale." Greeting and farewell! It
was a fitting gift to pass between people in their position. Beatrice,
trembling sorely, whispered that she would wear it on her heart, upon
her hand she could not put it yet awhile--it might be recognised.

Then thrice did they embrace there upon the desolate shore, once, as it
were, for past joy, once for present pain, and once for future hope,
and parted. There was no talk of after meetings--they felt them to
be impossible, at any rate for many years. How could they meet as
indifferent friends? Too much they loved for that. It was a final
parting, than which death had been less dreadful--for Hope sits ever by
the bed of death--and misery crushed them to the earth.

He left her, and happiness went out of his life as at nightfall the
daylight goes out of the day. Well, at least he had his work to go to.
But Beatrice, poor woman, what had she?

Geoffrey left her. When he had gone some thirty paces he turned again
and gazed his last upon her. There she stood or rather leant, her hand
resting against the wet rock, looking after him with her wide grey eyes.
Even through the drizzling rain he could see the gleam of her rich
hair, the marking of her lovely face, and the carmine of her lips. She
motioned to him to go on. He went, and when he had traversed a hundred
paces looked round once more. She was still there, but now her face was
a blur, and again the great white gull hovered about her head.

Then the mist swept up and hid her.

Ah, Beatrice, with all your brains you could never learn those simple
principles necessary to the happiness of woman; principles inherited
through a thousand generations of savage and semi-civilized
ancestresses. To accept the situation and the master that situation
brings with it--this is the golden rule of well-being. Not to put out
the hand of your affection further than you can draw it back, this is
another, at least not until you are quite sure that its object is well
within your grasp. If by misfortune, or the anger of the Fates, you
are endowed with those deeper qualities, those extreme capacities of
self-sacrificing affection, such as ruined your happiness, Beatrice,
keep them in stock; do not expose them to the world. The world does not
believe in them; they are inconvenient and undesirable; they are even
immoral. What the world wants, and very rightly, in a person of your
attractiveness is quiet domesticit