f? And yet, I feel that there is no danger for either of us."

"You are still sure?"

"And if there were, what harm would be done?" he laughed again. "We have
no plighted word to break, and I, at least, am singularly heart free.
The world would not come to an untimely end if we loved each other.
Indeed, the world would have nothing to say about it."

"To me, it would not," said Unorna, looking down at her clasped hands.
"But to you--what would the world say, if it learned that you were in
love with Unorna, that you were married to the Witch?"

"The world? What is the world to me, or what am I to it? What is my
world? If it is anything, it consists of a score of men and women who
chance to be spending their allotted time on earth in that corner of
the globe in which I was born, who saw me grow to manhood, and who most
inconsequently arrogate to themselves the privilege of criticising my
actions, as they criticise each other's; who say loudly that this is
right and that is wrong, and who will be gathered in due time to their
insignificant fathers with their own insignificance thick upon them, as
is meet and just. If that is the world I am not afraid of its judgments
in the very improbable case of my falling in love with you."

Unorna shook her head. There was a momentary relief in discussing the
consequences of a love not yet born in him.

"That would not be all," she said. "You have a country, you have a home,
you have obligations--you have all those things which I have not."

"And not one of those which you have."

She glanced at him again, for there was a truth in the words which hurt
her. Love, at least, was hers in abundance, and he had it not.

"How foolish it is to talk like this!" she exclaimed. "After all, when
people love, they care very little what the world says. If I loved any
one"--she tried to laugh carelessly--"I am sure I should be indifferent
to everything or every one else."

"I am sure you would be," assented the Wanderer.

"Why?" She turned rather suddenly upon him. "Why are you sure?"

"In the first place because you say so, and secondly because you have
the kind of nature which is above common opinion."

"And what kind of nature may that be?"

"Enthusiastic, passionate, brave."

"Have I so many good qualities?"

"I am always telling you so."

"Does it give you pleasure to tell me what you think of me?"

"Does it pain you to hear it?" asked the Wanderer, somewhat surprised at
the