hens. And on the way
it paused and dwelt a moment on a man's hand caressing the stray locks
of a flood of golden hair he could not see--might never see at all. Or
who might live on--such things have been--to find it grey to a
half-illuminated sight in the dusk of life. So invisible to him now; so
vivid in his memory of what seemed to him no more than a few days
since! For half the time, remember, had been to him oblivion--a mere
blank. And now, in the splendid intoxication of this new discovery, he
could well afford to forget for the moment the black cloud that overhung
the future, and the desperation that might well lie hidden in its heart,
waiting for the day when he should know that Hope was dead. That day
might come.

"Shall I tell you now, my dearest, my heart, my life"--this is what he
is saying, and every word he says is a mere truth to him; a sort of
scientific fact--"shall I tell you what I was going to say an hour
ago?..."

"It's more than an hour, but I know when. About me sticking my hand
out?"

"Just exactly then. I was thinking all the while that in another moment
I should have your hand in mine, and keep it as long as I dared. Eyes
were nothing--sight was nothing--life itself was nothing--nothing was
anything but that one moment just ahead. It would not last, but it would
fill the earth and the heavens with light and music, and keep death and
the fiend that had been eating up my soul at bay--as long as it lasted.
Dear love, I am not exaggerating...."

"Do you expect me to believe that? Now be quiet, and perhaps I'll tell
you what I was thinking when I found out you couldn't see--have been
thinking ever since. I thought it well over in the night, and when I
came into this room I meant it. I did, indeed."

"Meant what?"

"Meant to get at the truth about that ring of yours. I had got it on the
brain, you see. I meant to find out whether she was anybody or nobody.
And if she was nobody I was going to...." She comes to a standstill;
for, even now--even after such a revelation, with one of his arms about
her waist, and his free hand caressing her hair--Marcus Curtius sticks
in her throat a little.

"What were you going to?" said Adrian, really a little puzzled. Because
even poets don't understand some women.

"Well--if it wasn't you I wouldn't tell. I ... I had made up my mind to
apply for the vacant place." This came with a rush, and might not have
come at all had she felt his eyes could see her; kn