"the
dew of morning is on the grass."

He lifts her train as he says this, and lays it across the bare and
lovely arm that had been his for some blessed minutes. As he sees it,
and remembers everything--all that _might_ have been, and all that _has_
been, and all that _is_--a dry sob chokes his voice and, stooping, he
presses his lips passionately to her smooth, cool flesh.

At this she bursts into bitter weeping; and, letting her glimmering
white gown fall once again in its straight, cold folds around her, gives
way to uncontrollable sorrow.

"Must there be grief for you, too, my own sweetheart?" says Fabian; and
then he lays his arms around her and draws her to him, and holds her
close to his heart until her sobs die away through pure exhaustion. But
he never bends his head to hers, or seeks to press his lips to
those--that are sweet and dear beyond expression--but that never can be
his. Even at this supreme moment he strives to spare her a passing pang.

"Were she to kiss me now," he tells himself, "out of the depths of her
heart, when the cold, passionless morning came to her she would regret
it," and so he refrains from the embrace he would have sold his best to
gain.

"I wish there might be death, _soon_," says Portia, and then she looks
upon the awakening land so full of beauty, and growing light, and
promise of all good.

The great sun, climbing up aloft, strikes upon her gaze, and the swaying
trees, and the music of all things that live comes to her ears, and with
them all comes, too, a terrible sense of desolation that overwhelms
her.

"How can the world be so fair?" she says. "How can it smile, and grow,
and brighten into life, when there is no life--for--"

She breaks down.

"For us?" he finishes for her, slowly; and there is great joy in the
blending of her name with his. "Yes, I know; it is what you would have
said. Forgive me, my best beloved; but I am glad in the thought that we
grieve together."

His tone is full of sadness; a sadness without hope. They are standing
hand in hand, and are looking into each other's eyes.

"It is for the last time," she says, in a broken voice.

And he says:

"Yes, for the very last time."

He never tries to combat her resolution--to slay the foe that is
desolating his life and hers. He submits to cruel fate without a murmur.

"Put your face to mine," she says, _so_ faintly that he can hardly hear
her; and then once more he holds her in his arms, and pr