eled on
her lap, its delicate arms were clasped about her neck--black against
the lustrous white of her skin and all those twisted ropes of seed
pearls. It pressed its breasts against hers, amorously. It loved her
and she it. And he understood that in the whole scope of nature there
was but it alone, it only, that she ever had loved, or did, or could,
love. And, understanding this, he was filled with a great compassion
for her. And, answering her, his expression was gentle and pitiful.
Still he needs must speak the truth.

"Perhaps it was as well that you should read Luigi's letter," he said.

She turned upon him fiercely and scornfully, yet even as she did so her
soul fell to beckoning to him, soliciting him with evilly alluring
gestures.

"My congratulations to you," she exclaimed, "upon your praiseworthy
candour! I am to gather, then, that you believe that which my husband
advises himself to tell you? Under the circumstances it is exceedingly
convenient to you to do so, no doubt."

"How can I avoid believing it?" Richard asked, quite sweet-temperedly.
"Surely we need not waste the little time which remains in argument as
to that? You must admit, Helen, that Luigi's letter fits in. It
supplies just the piece of the puzzle which was missing. It tallies
with all the rest."

"All the rest?"

"Oh yes! It is part of the whole, precisely that part both of you and
of Naples which I knew, and tried so hard not to know, from the first.
But it is worse than useless to practice such refusals. The Whole, and
nothing less than the whole, is bound to get one in the end. It is
contrary to the nature of things that any integral portion of the whole
should submit to permanent denial."--Richard's voice deepened. He spoke
with a subdued enthusiasm, thinking of the dull-coloured multitude
there in the arena and the act of retributive justice on the eve, by
them, of accomplishment.--"It seems to me the radical weakness of all
human institutions, of all systems of thought, resides in exactly that
effort to select and reject, to exalt one part as against another part,
and so build not upon the rock of unity and completeness, but upon the
sand of partiality and division. And sooner or later the Whole revenges
itself, and the fine-fanciful fabric crumbles to ruin, just for lack of
that which in our short-sighted over-niceness we have taken such mighty
great pains to miss out. This has happened times out of number in
respect of religio