yond me.
Must it be so again? Once one said: 'Seek thou the sanctuary while yet
there may be time; and when thou art entered in all else shall be as
nothing, for there thou shalt have peace.' Then I did not understand;
now know I too well. That is what all my life I have never found, though
I have sought in many places, and for a weary while. Therefore pray your
God to pity me and all who are as I, for I am ridden by ten thousand
devils--a flame consumes me which I cannot quench. An ambition is not
all a blessing to him who hath it! Oh, the dreams that were mine, which
the high gods gave to me, and which are gone,--gone as the smoke goes
and shall never come again! The glimpse I have had of a world that
should be mine and never can be mine hath shown me all that I have lost.
I beat my hands against the bars, and what doth it avail? I am a
slave--a slave was I born and a slave shall I die. There is beauty in
the world, and I may not see it; there is knowledge in the world, and I
may not share it; and my soul is sick with longing for what all men may
have but I. There is a thing within me which cries panting for release,
and rends me because I know not how to set it free. It is agony and
delight, pain and joy beyond all naming; and once I thought it only joy.
Thus ever hath it been: what I have thought would bring me peace hath
brought me pain, and pain that I know not what I have done to deserve.
It was not thus when I lived a brute's life among the brutes in far,
gray, northern hills; there was I content, not knowing that I wanted
something more. Now have I stretched my hands out to a star, and found
it so far beyond my reach that for me its light is lost in darkness
which will never lift. Yet the star is shining,--but not for me."

The torrent of his speech checked. His voice dropped from the strain of
its hoarse passion. He gathered her two hands closer on his breast.

"We be two outcasts, thou and I!--thou shunning, I shunned. Yet we still
have each the other. Now do I come seeking the sanctuary of thy love,
thy balm and healing for the hands and heart I have beaten against my
bars. Wilt thou deny? Must I be turned away? Eldris, come!"

"Oh!" cried Eldris, her heart in her stricken voice. Long she looked at
him, with eyes drowned in tears and lips quivering, all her struggle in
her torn face. But suddenly she drew her hands from his, and slipped to
her knees before him, and hid her face in shaking fingers.

"Oh, G