hands upon mine eyes, and the
scales fell from them, and I saw thee and myself, and was humbled. Now
never while I live shall thy dear name pass my lips, lest through me one
breath of evil blow upon thee. I cannot die for thee, beloved, since
that were a fate too easy for the sport of thy high gods; I may not even
live for thee. This is all that I can do! This is what we have done,
each for the other: thy soul I wakened; thou in turn didst give to me a
soul within my soul, wakening it to what it never knew before,--new
dreams, new ambitions, new desires. For I saw through thee the great
world which is thy world, wherein lieth all for which men long and
strive. One glimpse I had; and now the gates are closed, and the light
is gone, and I am thrust back into outer darkness. And it all is
finished!"

A peal of laughter rose to him; a burst of music; a half-hundred voices
shouting _Vivas_ to Marius and his bride. He looked down once more into
the light and color of the great hall, seeing one there, only, out of
all the brilliant throng,--one fair and drooping, with scarlet poppies
framing her white face. Long and long he looked, as though he would burn
her image upon his heart and mind forever, his lady whom he had lost and
who was never his. So he turned away, back into the outer darkness, and
crossed the roofs again, and the blackness of the manhole swallowed him.

* * * * *

Wardo, cloaked and spurred and ready for the start, opened the cell door
and thrust his torch within. The light fell upon a bowed figure sitting
on the floor, motionless, with face hidden in its folded arms, and
nothing showing save a crown of rough black hair.

"Thou here?" said Wardo. "Well, I am sorry."

Nicanor looked up. His face, white with more than its prison pallor, was
drawn as though by bodily pain.

"Ay," he said dully, "I am here."

"I would thou wert not," Wardo muttered. "Come, then."

"I have a friend here, whom I would take with me," Nicanor said, without
rising. "Stand still, and I will call him."

He whistled softly through his teeth, a gentle hissing, until a shadow
seemed to stir from the far corner of the cell where the torchlight did
not fall. Forth into the light hobbled a great gray rat, gaunt, and
scarred, and lame. At sight of Wardo it whisked back into the gloom;
again Nicanor whistled; again it appeared, and again vanished. A third
time, emboldened, it essayed, and came to Nicanor