before, 'I do not remember. I remember nothing. I love you.'

She read, written in Andrea's hand, an epigram of Goethe's, a distich,
the one beginning--_Sage, wie lebst du?_ Say, how livest thou? _Ich
lebe!_ I live! 'And were it mine to live a hundred, hundred years, my
only wish would be that to-morrow should be as to-day.' Underneath this
there was a date: _Die ultima februarii_ 1885, and a name: _Helena
Amyclae_.

'Let us go,' she said.

The canopy of branches cast deep shadows over the little moss-carpeted
stairway.

'Will you take my arm?' he asked.

'No, thank you,' she replied.

They went on in silence. The heart of each was heavy.

Presently she said--'You were very happy two years ago.'

And he, persisting in his tone of reverie--'I do not know--I do not
remember.'

In the green twilight, the path was mysterious. The trunks and branches
of the trees were coiled and interlaced like serpents; here and there a
leaf gleamed through the shade like an emerald green eye.

After an interval of silence, she began again--'Who was that Elena?'

'I do not know, I have forgotten. I remember nothing but that I love
you. I love none but you. I think only of you. I live for you alone. I
know nothing, I wish for nothing but your love. Every fetter that binds
me to my former life is broken. Now I am far from the world, utterly
lost in you. I live in your heart and in your soul; I _feel myself_ in
every throb of your pulse; I do not touch you, and yet I am as close to
you as if I held you in my arms, pressed to my lips, to my heart. I love
you and you love me; and that has been for ages and will last for ages,
to all eternity. At your side, thinking of you, living in you, I am
conscious of the infinite--the eternal--I love you and you love me. I
know nothing else--I remember nothing else.'

On all her sadness, all her suspicions, he poured out a flood of warm
fond eloquence. And she listened, standing straight and slender in front
of the balustrade that runs round the wide terrace.

'Is it true? is it true?' she repeated, in a faint voice like the echo
of a moan out of the depth of her soul--'is that true?'

'Yes, it is true--and that alone is true. All the rest is a dream. I
love you and you love me. I am yours as you are mine. I know you to be
so absolutely mine that I ask for no caress; I ask for no proof of your
love. I can wait. My dearest delight is to obey you. I ask for no
caresses, but I can feel them in