did not understand. Could she
see the tears of blood that welled up in my eyes? Could she see the
blank despair that blinded my sight? Could she see the frozen hand that
I felt clutching at my heart and benumbing it? I did not understand;
that was all that it seemed to her.

She was my Ariadne, born again to suffer the same fate. I saw the
future: she could not. I knew that he would leave her as surely as the
night succeeds the day. I knew that his passion--if passion, indeed, it
were, and not only the mere common vanity of subjugation and
possession--would pall on him and fade out little by little, as the
stars fade out of the grey morning skies. I knew, but I had not the
courage to tell her.

Men were faithful only to the faithless. But what could she know of
this?

"Thinking of the stars and of the heavens in the desert all alone! Yes!"
I cried; and the bonds of my silence were unloosed, and the words rushed
from my lips like a torrent from between the hills.

"Yes; and never to see the stars any more, and to lose for ever the
peace of the desert--that, you think, is gain! Oh, my dear! what can I
say to you? What can I say? You will not believe if I tell you. I shall
seem a liar and a prophet of false woe. I shall curse when I would
bless. What can I say to you? Athene watched over you. You were of those
who dwell alone, but whom the gods are with. You had the clue and the
sword, and they are nothing to you; you lose them both at his word, at
the mere breath of his lips, and know no god but his idle law, that
shifts as the winds of the sea. And you count that gain? Oh, just
Heaven! Oh, my dear, my heart is broken; how can I tell you? One man
loved you who was great and good, to whom you were a sacred thing, who
would have lifted you up in heaven, and never have touched too roughly a
single hair of your head; and you saw him no more than the very earth
that you trod; he was less to you than the marbles he wrought in; and he
suffers: and what do you care? You have had the greatest wrong that a
woman can have, and you think it the greatest good, the sweetest gift!
He has torn your whole life down as a cruel hand tears a rose in the
morning light, and you rejoice! For what do you know? He will kill your
soul, and still you will kiss his hand. Some women are so. When he
leaves you, what will you do? For you there will only be death. The weak
are consoled, but the strong never. What will you do? What will you do?
You