e. I thought of you all the summer when I
was buried in the Country--my days and nights were full of you. Then when
your great success came--it was base of me--but all the time while I was
sending my congratulations to you through my sister at Venice, I was
really feeling that there was no more hope for me, and that some cruel
force was carrying you away from me. Then came _Elvira_--and I seemed to
give you up for ever.'

Her hands dropped from her face, and her great hazel eyes were fixed upon
him with that intent look he remembered long ago when she had asked him
for the 'truth' about herself and her position. But there was no pain in
it now; nothing but wonder and a sweet moved questioning.

'Why?' The word was just breathed through her parted lips.

Kendal heard it with a start--the little sound loosed his speech and made
him eloquent.

'Why? Because I thought you must inevitably be absorbed, swallowed up by
the great new future before you; because my own life looked so gray and
dull beside yours. I felt it impossible you should stoop from your height
to love me, to yield your bright self to me, to give me heart for heart.
So I went away that I might not trouble you. And then'--his voice sank
lower still--'came the summons to Paris, and Marie on her death-bed tried
to make me hope. And just now your pity drew the heart out of my lips.
Let me hear you forgive me.'

Every word had reached its mark. She had realized at last something of
the depth, the tenacity, the rich, illimitable promise of the passion
which she had roused. The tenderness of Marie seemed to encompass them,
and a sacred pathetic sense of death and loss drew them together. Her
respect, her reverence, her interest had been yielded long ago; did this
troubled yearning within mean something more, something infinitely
greater?

She raised herself suddenly, and, as he knelt beside her, he felt her
warm breath on his cheek, and a tear dropped on his hands, which her own
were blindly and timidly seeking.

'Oh!' she whispered, or rather sobbed, 'I never dreamt of it. I never
thought of anything like this. But--do not leave me again. I could not
bear it.'

Kendal bowed his head upon the hands nestling in his, and it seemed to
him as if life and time were suspended, as if he and she were standing
within the 'wind-warm space' of love, while death and sorrow and
parting--three grave and tender angels of benediction--kept watch and
ward without.

THE