n I loved her,
even after she was dead. I was not always saying so. I am not that kind
of man. Besides, men who live by stringing words together for money do
not value them much in their own lives. But I worked for her. I did the
best I could. Even she must have known that I loved her."

"I know you did. I cannot understand how you can speak of her at all."
Francesca wondered at the man.

"She? She is no more to me than Queen Christina, over there in her tomb
in the dark! For that matter, nothing else has any meaning, either."

For a long time Francesca said nothing. She sat quite still, resting the
back of her head against the marble, in the awful silence under the
faint lights that glimmered above the great tomb.

"You have told me the most dreadful thing I ever heard," she said at
last, in a low tone. "Is she nothing to you? Really nothing? Can you
never think kindly of her again?"

"No. Why should I? That is--" he hesitated. "I could not explain it," he
said, and was silent.

"It does not seem human," said Francesca. "You would have a memory of
her--something--some touch of sadness--I wonder whether you really loved
her as much as you thought you did?"

Griggs turned upon Francesca slowly, his hands clasped upon one knee.

"You do not know what such love means," he said slowly. "It is
God--faith--goodness--everything. It is heaven on earth, and earth in
heaven, in one heart. When it is gone there is nothing left. It went
hard. It will not come back now. The heart itself is gone. There is
nothing for it to come to. You think me cold, you are shocked because I
speak indifferently of her. She lied to me. She lied and acted in every
word and deed of her life with me. She deceived herself a little at
first, and she deceived me mortally afterwards. It was all an immense,
loathsome, deadly lie. I lived through the truth. Why should I wish to
go back to the lie again? She died, telling me that she died for me. She
died, having written to Reanda that she died for him. I do not judge
her. God will. But God Himself could not make me love the smallest
shadow of her memory. It is impossible. I am beyond life. I am outside
it. My eternity has begun."

"Is it not a little for her sake that you wish to save her father?"
asked Francesca.

"No. It is a matter of honour, and nothing else, since I injured him, as
the world would say, by taking his daughter from her husband. Do you
understand? Can you put yourself a little i