ht
she not change towards him? The Balder she loved was a grander man
than any Balder knew. Might she not learn to abhor the hand which
should unveil to her the Gorgon features of fallen humanity?--Much has
man lost in losing Paradise!

Contemplating Gnulemah's entrance into the outer world, Manetho had
anticipated her ruin from the flowering of the evil seed which he
believed himself to have planted in her. Might not the same result
issue from a precisely opposite cause? The Arcadian fashion in which
the lovers' passion had ripened must soon change forever. It was
perilous to advance, but to retreat was impossible. Balder was at bay;
had he loved Gnulemah less, he would have regretted Charon's
ferry-boat. But his love was greater for the danger and difficulty
wherewith it was fraught. He could not summon the millennium; well, he
might improve himself.

"If I could but shut her glorious eyes to all the shabby littleness
they will have to see, we might hazard the rest," he sighed to
himself. "If the pure visions of her maiden years might veil from her
those gross realities of every-day life! With what face shall I meet
her glance after it has suffered the first shock?"

Meanwhile her last objection remained unanswered, and Balder,
distrustful of his capacity, was inspired to seek inspiration from her
he would instruct.

"Tell me how you love me, Gnulemah," said he.

She roused herself, and bending her face to his, breathlessly kissed
his lips. Then she drooped her warm cheek on his shoulder, and
whispered the rest:--

"My love is to be near you, and to breathe when breathe; it is love to
become you, as water becomes wave. And love would make me sweet to
you, as honey and music and flowers. I love to be needed by you, as
you need food and drink and sleep; and my love will be loved, as God
loves the world."

To the lover these sentences were tender and sublime poetry. The tears
came to his eyes, hearing her speak out her loving soul so simply. He
had travelled through the world, while she had lived her life between
a wall and a precipice. But not the noisy, gaudy, gloomy crust which
is fresh to-day, and to-morrow hardens, and the next day crumbles, is
the world; but the fire-globe within: and Gnulemah was nearer that
fire than Balder. There was puissance in her simplicity,--in her
ignorance of that crust which he had so widely studied. Her knowledge
was more profound than his, for she had never learned to stultif