his not being able to take, there is suffering enough in
this ill-begotten and ill-sorted world. Ye greatest enemy of ye
kiss that ye earth has ever known is ye sun; ye greatest friend is
ye night_.

"_Ye most cases where ye woman can take ye kiss are put down in ye
'Big Booke_.'

"_When ye man lies sick in ye hospital and ye woman bends over him
and he is too weak to raise his head, she can let her head fall
down on his; it is only the law of gravitation. But not while she
is giving him ye physick. If ye woman is riding in ye carriage and
ye horses run away; and ye man she loves is standing in ye bushes
and rushes out and seizes ye horses but is dragged, when he lies in
ye road in ye swoon, ye woman can send ye driver around behind ye
carriage and kiss him then--as she always does in ye women their
novels but never does in ye life. There is one time when any woman
can freely kiss ye man she loves: in ye dreame. It is ye safest
way, and ye best. No one knows; and it does not disappoint as it
often does disappoint when ye are awake_.

"_Lastly when ye beautiful swain that ye woman loved is dead, she
way go into ye room where he lies white and cold and kiss him then:
but she waited too long_."

Marguerite let the book fall as though an arrow had pierced her.
At the same time she heard the librarian approaching. She quickly
restored the volume to its place and drew out another book. The
librarian entered the alcove, smiled at Marguerite, peeped over her
shoulder into the book she was reading, searched for another, and
took it away. When she disappeared, Marguerite rose and looked;
Lady Bluefields was gone.

She could not banish those heart-breaking words: "_When ye
beautiful swain that ye woman loved is dead_." The longing of the
past days, the sadness, the languor that was ecstasy and pain,
swept back over her as she sat listening now, hoping for another
footstep. Would he not come? She did not ask to speak with him.
If she might only see him, only feel him near for a few moments.

She quitted the library slowly at last, trying to escape notice;
and passed up the street with an unconscious slight drooping of
that aerial figure. When she reached her yard, the tree-tops
within were swaying and showing the pale gray under-surfaces of
their leaves. A storm was coming. She turned at the gate, her hat
in her hand, and looked toward the cloud with red lightnings
darting from it: a still white figure conf