e wept for
Desdemona's innocence and hard fate; but she pitied more the far harder
fate of Othello, and found the death of both a consolation for the
trouble their troubles had stirred up in her.

The curate was in the habit of scribbling on his books, and at the end
of the play, which left a large blank on the page, had written a few
verses: as she sat dreaming over the tragedy, Juliet almost
unconsciously took them in. They were these:

In the hot hell o'
Jealousy shines Othello--
Love in despair,
An angel in flames!
While pure Desdemona
Waits him alone, a
Ghost in the air,
White with his blames.

Becoming suddenly aware of their import, she burst out weeping afresh,
but with a very different weeping--Ah, if it might be so! Soon then had
the repentant Othello, rushing after his wife, explained all, and
received easiest pardon: he had but killed her. Her Paul would not even
do that for her! He did not love her enough for that. If she had but
thrown herself indeed into the lake, then perhaps--who could tell!--she
might now be nearer to him than she should ever be in this world.

All the time, Dorothy was much and vainly exercised as to what might
become possible for the bringing of them together again. But it was not
as if any misunderstanding had arisen between them: such a difficulty
might any moment be removed by an explanation. The thing that divided
them was the original misunderstanding, which lies, deep and black as
the pit, between every soul and the soul next it, where self and not God
is the final thought. The gulf is forever crossed by "bright shoots of
everlastingness," the lightnings of involuntary affection; but nothing
less than the willed love of an infinite devotion will serve to close
it; any moment it may be lighted up from beneath, and the horrible
distance between them be laid bare. Into this gulf it was that, with
absolute gift of himself, the Lord, doing like his Father, cast Himself;
and by such devotion alone can His disciples become fellow-workers with
Him, help to slay the evil self in the world, and rouse the holy self to
like sacrifice, that the true, the eternal life of men, may arise
jubilant and crowned. Then is the old man of claims and rights and
disputes and fears, re-born a child whose are all things and who claims
and fears nothing.

In ignorance of Faber's mood, whether he mourned over his harshness, or
justified himself in resentment, Dorothy could but wai