embered her smile, her eyes, her voice, her
silence, as though he had lost her forever. The years would pass and
he would always mistrust her smile, suspect her eyes; he would always
misbelieve her voice, he would never have faith in her silence. She had
no gift--she had no gift! What was she? Who was she? . . . The years
would pass; the memory of this hour would grow faint--and she would
share the material serenity of an unblemished life. She had no love and
no faith for any one. To give her your thought, your belief, was like
whispering your confession over the edge of the world. Nothing came
back--not even an echo.

In the pain of that thought was born his conscience; not that fear of
remorse which grows slowly, and slowly decays amongst the complicated
facts of life, but a Divine wisdom springing full-grown, armed and
severe out of a tried heart, to combat the secret baseness of motives.
It came to him in a flash that morality is not a method of happiness.
The revelation was terrible. He saw at once that nothing of what he knew
mattered in the least. The acts of men and women, success, humiliation,
dignity, failure--nothing mattered. It was not a question of more or
less pain, of this joy, of that sorrow. It was a question of truth or
falsehood--it was a question of life or death.

He stood in the revealing night--in the darkness that tries the hearts,
in the night useless for the work of men, but in which their gaze,
undazzled by the sunshine of covetous days, wanders sometimes as far as
the stars. The perfect stillness around him had something solemn in it,
but he felt it was the lying solemnity of a temple devoted to the rites
of a debasing persuasion. The silence within the discreet walls was
eloquent of safety but it appeared to him exciting and sinister, like
the discretion of a profitable infamy; it was the prudent peace of a
den of coiners--of a house of ill-fame! The years would pass--and nobody
would know. Never! Not till death--not after . . .

"Never!" he said aloud to the revealing night.

And he hesitated. The secret of hearts, too terrible for the timid eyes
of men, shall return, veiled forever, to the Inscrutable Creator of
good and evil, to the Master of doubts and impulses. His conscience
was born--he heard its voice, and he hesitated, ignoring the strength
within, the fateful power, the secret of his heart! It was an awful
sacrifice to cast all one's life into the flame of a new belief. He
wan