y of his own destruction and
annihilation.

She tortured the open heart of him even as he turned to her. And she
was tortured herself. It may have been her will was stronger. She felt,
with horror, as if he tore at the bud of her heart, tore it open, like
an irreverent persistent being. Like a boy who pulls off a fly's wings,
or tears open a bud to see what is in the flower, he tore at her
privacy, at her very life, he would destroy her as an immature bud,
torn open, is destroyed.

She might open towards him, a long while hence, in her dreams, when she
was a pure spirit. But now she was not to be violated and ruined. She
closed against him fiercely.

They climbed together, at evening, up the high slope, to see the
sunset. In the finely breathing, keen wind they stood and watched the
yellow sun sink in crimson and disappear. Then in the east the peaks
and ridges glowed with living rose, incandescent like immortal flowers
against a brown-purple sky, a miracle, whilst down below the world was
a bluish shadow, and above, like an annunciation, hovered a rosy
transport in mid-air.

To her it was so beautiful, it was a delirium, she wanted to gather the
glowing, eternal peaks to her breast, and die. He saw them, saw they
were beautiful. But there arose no clamour in his breast, only a
bitterness that was visionary in itself. He wished the peaks were grey
and unbeautiful, so that she should not get her support from them. Why
did she betray the two of them so terribly, in embracing the glow of
the evening? Why did she leave him standing there, with the ice-wind
blowing through his heart, like death, to gratify herself among the
rosy snow-tips?

'What does the twilight matter?' he said. 'Why do you grovel before it?
Is it so important to you?'

She winced in violation and in fury.

'Go away,' she cried, 'and leave me to it. It is beautiful, beautiful,'
she sang in strange, rhapsodic tones. 'It is the most beautiful thing I
have ever seen in my life. Don't try to come between it and me. Take
yourself away, you are out of place--'

He stood back a little, and left her standing there, statue-like,
transported into the mystic glowing east. Already the rose was fading,
large white stars were flashing out. He waited. He would forego
everything but the yearning.

'That was the most perfect thing I have ever seen,' she said in cold,
brutal tones, when at last she turned round to him. 'It amazes me that
you should want to des