"Love, what gulf were you talking about?" she said, with an anxious
expression apparent upon her face.

"Death."

"You hurt me," she answered. "There are some thoughts upon which we,
poor women that we are, cannot dwell; they are death to us. Is it
strength of love in us, or lack of courage? I cannot tell. Death does
not frighten me," she began again, laughingly. "To die with you, both
together, to-morrow morning, in one last embrace, would be joy. It seems
to me that even then I should have lived more than a hundred years.
What does the number of days matter if we have spent a whole lifetime of
peace and love in one night, in one hour?"

"You are right; Heaven is speaking through that pretty mouth of yours.
Grant that I may kiss you, and let us die," said Raphael.

"Then let us die," she said, laughing.

Towards nine o'clock in the morning the daylight streamed through the
chinks of the window shutters. Obscured somewhat by the muslin curtains,
it yet sufficed to show clearly the rich colors of the carpet, the silks
and furniture of the room, where the two lovers were lying asleep. The
gilding sparkled here and there. A ray of sunshine fell and faded upon
the soft down quilt that the freaks of live had thrown to the ground.
The outlines of Pauline's dress, hanging from a cheval glass, appeared
like a shadowy ghost. Her dainty shoes had been left at a distance from
the bed. A nightingale came to perch upon the sill; its trills repeated
over again, and the sounds of its wings suddenly shaken out for flight,
awoke Raphael.

"For me to die," he said, following out a thought begun in his dream,
"my organization, the mechanism of flesh and bone, that is quickened
by the will in me, and makes of me an individual MAN, must display some
perceptible disease. Doctors ought to understand the symptoms of any
attack on vitality, and could tell me whether I am sick or sound."

He gazed at his sleeping wife. She had stretched her head out to him,
expressing in this way even while she slept the anxious tenderness of
love. Pauline seemed to look at him as she lay with her face turned
towards him in an attitude as full of grace as a young child's, with her
pretty, half-opened mouth held out towards him, as she drew her light,
even breath. Her little pearly teeth seemed to heighten the redness of
the fresh lips with the smile hovering over them. The red glow in her
complexion was brighter, and its whiteness was, so to speak, whiter