hose acts of lust and blood. And through all
his horrid thoughts came the sweet voice of Brilliana singing the
sweet, brave words, and he saw her curls sway as she sang, and he
thought of her love for her kinsman which she had told him so simply,
and he thought of his own mad love for her, which she would never
know, which no one would ever understand. And then he thought of that
grim sentry at the western gate whose hate was black, whose aim was
fatal.

A fantastic purpose came into the man's thought. His mind was ever
like a stage with the lights lighted and the curtains drawn, upon
whose boards himself played a thousand parts and played them to the
top. Here was the part he had never played, the noblest, the most
heroic, chiefly perhaps in this, that it was also the loneliest. The
purpose had hardly pricked before he seized it, hugged it to his
breast, made it incorporate with his being. Mingled with his tender
pity for Brilliana there was now a splendid pity for himself, the
noblest Roman of them all. But the purpose must not cool. His
thoughts were all a-jumble. One of them seemed to assert to his
feverish fancy that this way meant atonement; the quenching of his
torch some measure of compensation for the candles he had puffed
out.

Unseen he stretched his hands as if in benediction towards Brilliana,
and then went noiselessly out of the room. On the stairs he met
Evander descending to say farewell to his hostess, his hat in his
hand and his cloak over his arm. Halfman stopped him. "She waits you
in the garden-room," he said; "I will hold your cloak and hat for you
here while you make your adieus. A lover should not be cumbered."
Evander thanked him, surrendered cloak and hat, and entered the
garden-room. He did not hear what Halfman said, though Halfman spoke
it aloud, with all the lovers of all time for audience: "There goes
the blessedest man in all the world." Then, with Evander's cloak
about him and Evander's hat upon his head, Halfman went out into the
garden.

At the sound of Evander's step Brilliana turned and rose to greet
him.

"My dear!" she cried, her eyes luminous, her breast heaving.

"My riding-time has come," he said, sadly. He stood apart, but she
came near to him and put her hands on his shoulders.

"You found me in tears, but you must think of me as smiling--smiling
for joy in my lover, smiling at the thought of his return."

He caught her in his arms, clasped her close to him, and kiss