these things were
warmly commended to the human being whose song of life had ceased.

"But they break my heart, little singer, they break my heart!"

The robin lifted up its head and warbled more rapturously than ever.

The tears were falling fast now, and silently. The thoughts ran on and
on. "I know it all, I know it all, and my heart is broken--and it is my
own fault--and it does not matter--the world is full of broken
hearts--and it does not matter, it does not matter. But, oh, if the pain
might stop, if the pain might stop! The robin sings now, because the
spring is here; but it is not always spring. And some day--perhaps not
this winter, but some day--the dear little brown body will agonize--it
will die alone, in the horrible great universe; one thinks little of a
robin, but it agonizes all the same when its time comes; it agonizes all
the same."

The thoughts were drowned, for a moment, in a flood of terrible,
unbearable pity for all the sorrow of the world.

The robin seemed to think that he had a mission to cheer his companion,
for he warbled merrily on. And beside him, the dust-motes danced the
wildest of dances, in the shaft of sunshine.

"It is very lovely, it is very lovely--the world is a miracle, but it is
all like a taunt, it is like an insult, this glory of the world. I am
born a woman, and to be born a woman is to be exquisitely sensitive to
insult and to live under it always, always. I wish that I were as marble
to the magic of Life, I wish that I cared for nothing and felt nothing.
I pray only that the dream and the longing may be killed, and killed
quickly!"

In the silence, the bird's note sounded clear and tender. The dance of
the dust-motes, like the great dance of Life itself, went on without
ceasing.

The robin seemed to insist on a brighter view of things. He urged his
companion to take comfort. Had the spring not come?

"But you do not understand, you do not understand, little soul that
sings--the spring is torturing me and taunting me. If only it would kill
me!"

The robin fluffed out his feathers, and began again to impart his sweet
philosophy. Hadria was shedding the first unchecked tears that she had
shed since her earliest childhood. And then, for the second time to-day,
that strange unexplained peace stole into her heart. Reason came quickly
and drove it away with a sneer, and the horror and the darkness closed
round again.

"If I might only die, if I might only die!"