alas, _what_ had he
confessed? What penance had been laid upon him?

She trembled as she pressed closer to him. "What are you going to do?"
she panted.

"I'm going now," he whispered, shaken. "I'm going. Oh, if only I
could!" He uttered a deep sigh.

His sigh gave her back her courage. She felt that it was difficult for
him to leave, and that made her feel stronger. "You'll not go," she
said, smiling amidst her tears, "you'll not leave me. I love you so
dearly. And--aren't we husband and wife in the sight of God?" The words
came to her like an inspiration. They would calm him--husband and wife
in the sight of God. "And those whom God hath joined together let no
man put asunder."

"Be silent!" he cried vehemently, raising his hand [Pg 245] as though
terrified. "You must not interpret it in that way. I've sinned against
the sixth and ninth commandments; I know it now." He bent his head very
low.

"Have you betrayed me?" she stammered, turning pale and then flushing.

"I've not betrayed you," he said sadly. "But I've betrayed myself, if
you call that 'betraying.' How could I do otherwise? I had to confess
that I had unclean desires, that I"--he stopped and pressed his hands
to his head--"oh, if I had never come here! _Psia krew_, if only I had
never seen you." He gave a dry sob as though he were a boy, and ran
away from her through the gate and over the yard into the house,
banging the door after him.

She followed him with her eyes. What she had had a presentiment of had
now happened, what she had never dreamt of at first had come after all.
She stood as though crushed. She felt a pain as though there were
something in her throat. It was her terror that was choking her, but
she forced it down. Clenching her fists so tightly together that her
nails dug into the flesh, she threw her head back. She would not give
him up--and she need not do so either.

But how, how was she to set about it, how was she to bring about that
he remained with her for ever? She stared at the empty fields with
lifeless eyes. Then she threw herself on her knees in her terror and
distress and deep despair. Here under the sky, that looked like a dome
over the flat land, she would pray, she would cry at the door of
heaven, so that the saints who were inside might hear her and give her
advice and be merciful to her.

She knelt a long time in front of the niche in which the image of the
Virgin stood. Ah, the Holy Mother [Pg 246] up there knew