h this new vision come
memories and foresights. This man whom I love--three months ago I had
never seen his face--and now I feel as though I had known him not only
all my life, but from the beginning of time--as though we never could be
parted any more.

"And I talk thus about one who has never said a tender word to me. Why?
Because my thought, is his thought, and my mind his mind. How am I sure
of that? Because it came upon me at the moment when I learned the truth
about myself. He and I are one, therefore I learned the truth about him
also.

"I was like Eve when she left the Tree; knowledge was mine, only I had
eaten of the fruit of Life. Yet the taste of it must be bitter in my
mouth. What have I done? I have given my spirit into the keeping of a
man who is pledged to another woman, and, as I think, have taken his
from her keeping to my own. What then? Is this other woman, who is so
good and kind, to be robbed of all that is left to her in the world? Am
I to take from her him who is almost her husband? Never. If his heart
has come to me I cannot help it--for the rest, no. So what is left to
me? His spirit and all the future when the flesh is done with; that is
heritage enough. How the philosopher who argued about the love of men
and women would laugh and mock if he could see these words. Supposing
that he could say, 'Stella Fregelius, I am in a position to offer you
a choice. Will you have this man for your husband and live out your
natural lives upon the strict stipulation that your relationship ends
absolutely and forever with your last breaths? Or will you let him go
to the other woman for their natural lives with the prospect of that
heritage which your imagination has fashioned; that dim eternity of
double joy where, hand in hand, twain and yet one, you will fulfil the
secret purpose of your destinies?'

"What should I answer then?

"Before Heaven I would answer that I would not sell myself to the devil
of the flesh and of this present world. What! Barter my birthright of
immortality for the mess of pottage of a few brief years of union? Pay
out my high hopes to their last bright coin for this dinner of mingled
herbs? Drain the well of faith dug with so many prayers and labours,
that its waters may suffice to nourish a rose planted in the sand, whose
blooms must die at the first touch of creeping earthly frost?

"The philosopher would say that I was mad; that the linnet in the hand
is better than all the b