little, but
you did not love me much!"

"I am glad, for your sake and for my own," she said; "I am glad that I
did not marry you."

Then, as the fire flamed out, tears of despair rushed to her eyes,
because he looked as though she had hurt him so--his face more like a
beautiful cameo than ever, pure and sharp; he who was so debonair and
generous with them all, genial toward them always, and familiar with
the simplest and poorest. She longed impulsively to take him to her
heart, to give him with yearning tenderness the one caress he had
pleaded for: but, still seeing dimly where he was blind, she would not.

Notely watched that struggle, saw the impulse fade upon her face into a
white resolve; watched her keenly meanwhile with tumultuous hope.

"Vesty, once when we were little more than children, we were playing on
Ladle Rock and I fell. You did not leave me, frightened; insensible as
I was, you bathed my face and stayed by me. When I came to myself my
head was in your lap. You had on a brown cotton frock, made in an
old-womanish grave fashion, and you were looking down at me. From that
moment all my life changed--who can explain it? I was a child in my
feeling toward you no longer, with childish thoughts. I loved
you--loved you as I love you now--but you have robbed me of my life."

"No," she said. That sad fire from outside herself came back to her.
"You have only been denied one pleasure the more that you wanted, and
that would not have been so dear to you long if you had not lost it.
Life is above that, you used to tell me, but you have forgotten."

"Rather, I have grown wiser," he said, but for the instant he set his
clear, fine face away from her. "It is a distorted notion that our
existence here is for cold denial, from however pure an imagination.
It is better to run with life, to follow joyfully the great trend of
nature."

He looked at her: her staid, unreproachful eyes, her calm and holy
face, smote him.

"My pleasure-friends, as you call them, say that the Basins are simple.
That is a superficial observation;" he laughed with despair, and
proceeded to fill his pipe. "The Basins are like a rock."

"Notely," said she very slowly then, "your face is dear to me as this
little one upon my breast; it eats into my heart."

All life's sorrow looked through her, and a faith, a purpose, stronger
than life. Notely cast his misery from him with a sigh; the game was
over.

"Saint Vesta," said he