reatest and best of men; you are like a god
to me."

They remained silent a long while with their hands clasped, looking
into the darkness of the murmuring garden. From above still sounded
the lament of the genius at his fading life.

Sagrario leant on Gabriel as though her strength were failing, and as
if terrified at so much happiness, she wished to take refuge in his
arms.

"Why have I known you so late!" she said in a low voice. "I should
have wished to love you in my youth, to be beautiful and healthy only
for you, to have the beauty and charm of a great lady to soften the
rest of your life. But my gratitude can offer you little, nothing but
ill-health; the seeds of death are in me, and slowly I shall fade
away. Gabriel, why did you set your heart on me?"

"Because you are an invalid, and unfortunate as I am. Our misery is
the loving affinity. Besides, I have never loved like most men. In my
travels I have seen the most beautiful women in the world without the
slightest glow of desire. I am not of an amorous temperament. From my
adventures in Paris when I was young I always returned with a feeling
of disgust. My love for the unfortunate has mastered me to the point
of blunting my feelings. I am like a drunkard or a gambler, who,
obsessed by their passion, feel nothing before a woman. A studious
man, buried in his books, feels very little the calls of sex. My
passion is pity for the disinherited, and hatred of injustice
and inequality. It has so entirely absorbed me, enslaving all my
faculties, that I have never had time to think of love. The female
does not attract me, but I worship a woman when I see her sad and
unfortunate. Ugliness makes more impression on me than beauty, because
it speaks to me of social infamies, it shows me the bitterness of
injustice, it is the only wine which revives my strength. I loved Lucy
because she was unfortunate and dying. I love you, Sagrario, because
in your early youth you were a wanderer in life, one whom no one would
love. My love is for you, to brighten what remains to you of life."

Sagrario leant on Gabriel's breast.

"How good you are!" she sighed; "what a beautiful soul!"

"Yours is the same, poor Sagrario. Your life has been a snare. You
sold yourself through hunger and despair as do thousands of others;
you thought to find bread in the false pretences of love. Everything
is for the privileged of this world: the arms of the father, the sex
of the daughter, and wh