xperienced keen inward delight at thus
dividing myself. I sought all that was best and most beautiful within
me to give it to you. You might have carried off everything, and still
I should have thanked you. And I woke when you went out of me. You
left through my eyes and mouth; ay, I felt it. You were all warm, all
fragrant, so sweet that it was the thrill from you that has made me
awake.'

Albine listened to his words with ecstasy. At last he saw her; at last
his birth was accomplished, his cure begun. With outstretched hands she
begged him to go on.

'How have I managed to live without you?' he murmured. 'No, I did not
live, I was like a slumbering animal. And now you are mine! and you are
no one but myself! Listen, you must never leave me; for you are my very
breath, and in leaving me you would rob me of my life. We will remain
within ourselves. You will be mine even as I shall be yours. Should I
ever forsake you, may I be accursed, may my body wither like a useless
and noxious weed!'

He caught hold of her hands, and exclaimed in a voice quivering with
admiration: 'How beautiful you are!'

In the falling dust of sunshine Albine's skin looked milky white, scarce
gilded here and there by the sunny sheen. The shower of roses around and
on her steeped her in pinkness.

Her fair hair, loosely held together by her comb, decked her head as
with a setting planet whose last bright sparks shone upon the nape of
her neck. She wore a white gown; her arms, her throat, her stainless
skin bloomed unabashed as a flower, musky with a goodly fragrance. Her
figure was slender, not too tall, but supple as a snake's, with softly
rounded, voluptuously expanding outlines, in which the freshness of
childhood mingled with womanhood's nascent charms. Her oval face, with
its narrow brow and rather full mouth, beamed with the tender living
light of her blue eyes. And yet she was grave, too, her cheeks
unruffled, her chin plump--as naturally lovely as are the trees.

'And how I love you!' said Serge, drawing her to himself.

They were wholly one another's now, clasped in each other's arms! They
did not kiss, but held each other round the waist, cheek to cheek,
united, dumb, delighted with their oneness. Around them bloomed the
roses with a mad, amorous blossoming, full of crimson and rosy and white
laughter. The living, opening flowers seemed to bare their very bosoms.
Yellow roses were there showing the golden skin of barbarian maidens