hoarsely. "Heart of mine, that
is the tale I dared not tell! A tale of three words, three little words,
which yet is longer than any tale that ever was said or sung. Dost
understand, dear heart, what that must mean to thee and me?"

She drew herself away from him with her hands against his breast.

"You love me," she repeated, not questioningly, but as one making
statement of a fact. "Ay, I understand that. Why should I not?" Her
voice grew tenderly solemn. "'Where thou art, Caius, there am I, Caia;
and thy people shall be my people' ... _that_ is when one loves."

Nicanor cut her short with an exclamation.

"Ay, that is when happy other men and women love!" he said bitterly.
"But not for such as thou and I. For us, beloved, it means that where
thou art, there I may not be; that all men, all circumstance, would
strive to part us, since the world will have it that high blood may not
mate with lowly."

"But why?" she asked. Her voice was wondering. "If two people love, is
not that enough?"

"'If two people love,'" Nicanor repeated. He drew her back into his arms
and turned her face upward to the stars and to his eyes. "Beloved, I
have said I love thee with a love that must last through life and death
and all that lies beyond. So, since I am what I must be, I have placed
my life within thy hands for good or ill. Thou sayest 'If two people
love.' Dost thou then love me?"

She raised her head and looked full at him.

"Ay, surely I love thee," she answered. "Thou hast told me tales so
strange and wonderful that none were ever like them in the world before.
And thou hast been kind to me, nor ever scolded, nor called me fool, as
does my lord father when I have displeased him. Does not one always love
those who are kind to one? It is the least that one can do, I think. And
yet ... I do not know. What is this love thou hast?"

"The most terrible thing in the world, and the sweetest," Nicanor
answered, his eyes on hers. "It is a chain that binds life to life, and
the links of the chain are drops of heart's blood. It is pain from
which one would not seek relief. Men have called it a flower, beloved,
but it is no flower, for flowers wither in a little space, and die, and
love hath eternal life. Ay, for it is eternal; and death, to it, is but
a moment in the dark."

Varia caught her breath with a smothered sob.

"Ah, but I do love thee when thou talkest so!" she whispered. "Often I
cannot understand thy words, but I can