t she had said, if through the pain of her acts and words
he had obtained the word of the enigma! There can be no life without
faith and love--faith in a human heart, love of a human being! That
touch of grace, whose help once in life is the privilege of the
most undeserving, flung open for him the portals of beyond, and in
contemplating there the certitude immaterial and precious he forgot
all the meaningless accidents of existence: the bliss of getting, the
delight of enjoying; all the protean and enticing forms of the cupidity
that rules a material world of foolish joys, of contemptible sorrows.
Faith!--Love!--the undoubting, clear faith in the truth of a soul--the
great tenderness, deep as the ocean, serene and eternal, like the
infinite peace of space above the short tempests of the earth. It was
what he had wanted all his life--but he understood it only then for the
first time. It was through the pain of losing her that the knowledge had
come. She had the gift! She had the gift! And in all the world she was
the only human being that could surrender it to his immense desire.
He made a step forward, putting his arms out, as if to take her to
his breast, and, lifting his head, was met by such a look of blank
consternation that his arms fell as though they had been struck down by
a blow. She started away from him, stumbled over the threshold, and
once on the landing turned, swift and crouching. The train of her gown
swished as it flew round her feet. It was an undisguised panic. She
panted, showing her teeth, and the hate of strength, the disdain of
weakness, the eternal preoccupation of sex came out like a toy demon out
of a box.

"This is odious," she screamed.

He did not stir; but her look, her agitated movements, the sound of her
voice were like a mist of facts thickening between him and the vision
of love and faith. It vanished; and looking at that face triumphant and
scornful, at that white face, stealthy and unexpected, as if discovered
staring from an ambush, he was coming back slowly to the world of
senses. His first clear thought was: I am married to that woman; and the
next: she will give nothing but what I see. He felt the need not to see.
But the memory of the vision, the memory that abides forever within the
seer made him say to her with the naive austerity of a convert awed by
the touch of a new creed, "You haven't the gift." He turned his back
on her, leaving her completely mystified. And she went up