rself she was no longer alone. That other unshaped
something kept her company.

She was bound hand and foot, soul, body, and intelligence, for life.
She, the very strong, was tied to the helpless; she, the energetic, was
bound to apathy; she, the active, was nailed to the passive; she, the
free, the erect, was bowed under a burden which she must carry to her
life's end, never to be free again.

She could bear the burden, and she said none of these things to herself.
But the wrong was upon nature, and the mother of all turned against the
one child that would be unlike all the rest.

The man who was a man, soul and body, heart, hand, and spirit, stood
beside the other, who was a shadow, and beside her, who was a woman--and
the tragedy began in the prologue of contrast. Strength to weakness,
motion to immobility, the grace and carriage of manly youth to the sad
restfulness of helpless, hopeless limbs that never again could feel and
bear weight; that was the contrast from which there was no escaping. On
the steps of love's temple, at the very threshold, the one lay half
dead, never to rise again; and beside him stood the other, in the pride
and glory of the morning of life.

It would have been hard, even if the contrast had been less strong to
the eye, and the distance of the two souls greater one from the
other--even if Taquisara had not been what he was. But as the one, in
his being, was alive from head to heel, so the other was dead save in
the thoughts in which he still had a shadowy life. And for the
rest--flesh, blood, and life apart--they were equals. Was Gianluca true?
Taquisara was as honest and loyal as the brave daylight. Was the one
brave? So was the other, in thought and deed. Was Gianluca enduring? So
was Taquisara, and he had the more to endure, the more to fight, the
more to keep down in him.

She knew that he loved her. How it was that she knew it she could not
tell, but sometimes the music of the truth rang in her ears till the
flame shot up in her face and she shut her eyes to hide her soul--a
loud, triumphant music, stately and grand as might herald the marching
of archangels--till her inward cry of terror pierced it, and all was as
still as the grave. Then, for a space, the vision of sin stood dark in
the way, and she turned and fled from it back to Gianluca's side, back
to the care of him, back to his helpless love for her, back to his
pathetic, stricken restfulness, back to the maiden dreams of a