st passed.' Philip Marston's terrible poem,--you have read it,--'A
Christmas Vigil'? 'The haven entered,'--the whirlwind of passion has
been left far away, we fancy. Oh, we are fools! It sweeps down upon us
and then--doom--doom!"

"My poor dear, you are talking wildly."

"If you only understood--perhaps you will some day understand, and then
you will know what seems wild in my speech is but the incoherence of a
poor creature who has been beaten to the ground by the whirlwind, and
only saved from destruction by a miracle."

She had sprung from her place on the sofa and was pacing the room, her
diamonds quivering, luminous as a shower of meteors--that was the fancy
that flashed from her to Phyllis. Meteors--meteors--what a splendid
picture she made flashing from place to place! Meteors--ah, surely there
was the meteor-bird flashing across the drawing room!

"Come and sit down, my dear Ella," said Phyllis. "You are, as you know,
quite unintelligible to me."

"Unintelligible to you? I am unintelligible to myself," cried Ella. "Why
should I be tramping up and down your room when I might be at this very
moment----" She clutched Phyllis' arm. "I want to stay with you all
night," she whispered. "I want to sleep in your bed with you, Phyllis. I
want to feel your arms around me as I used to feel my mother's long ago.
Whatever I may say, you will not let me go, Phyllis?"

"I will load you with chains," said Phyllis, patting her lovely hair--it
was no longer smooth. "Why should you want to go away from me? Cannot we
be happy together once again as we used to be long ago?"

"How long ago that was! And we read 'Romeo and Juliet' together, and
fancied that we had gone down to the very depths of its meaning. We
fancied that we had sounded the very depths of its passion and pathos.
We were only girls. Ah, Phyllis, I tell you--I, who know--I, who have
found it out,--I tell you that the tragedy is the tragedy of all lovers
who have ever lived in the world. I tell you that it is the tragedy of
love itself. 'Gallop apace, ye fiery-footed steeds!' That is the poem
that the heart of the lover sings all day--all day! I have heard
it--my heart has sung it. I have heard the passionate gallop of those
fiery-footed steeds. I have listened to them while my heart beat in
unison with their frantic career--all day counting the moments with
fiery face, and then--then--something that was not passion forced me to
fly from it for the salvation of m