being worn
out with pining and longing-to part now, to see him rush on an uncertain
fate--it would kill her, it would certainly be her death! And when he
still had tried to resist she had rushed into his arms, had stopped his
lips with burning kisses, and whispered in his ear all the flattering
words of love he once had held so dear.

Why had he never seriously tried to win her, why had he so soon
forgotten her? Because she, who could assert her dignity firmly enough
with others, had abandoned herself to him unresistingly after a few
meetings, as if befooled by some magician's spell. The precious spoil
so easily won had soon lost its value in his eyes. But to-day the fire
which had died out blazed up again. Yes, this was the love he craved, he
must have! To be loved with entire and utter devotion, with a heart
that thought only of him and not of itself, that asked only for love in
return for love, that did not fence itself round with caution and invoke
the aid of others for protection against him. This lovely creature, all
passion, who had taken upon herself to endure the contumely of society,
and pain and grief for his sake, knowing too that he had abandoned her,
and would never make her his wife before God and men--she indeed knew
what it was to love; and he who was so often inclined to despair of
himself felt his heart uplifted at the thought that he was so precious
in her eyes, nay--he would own it--so idolized.

And how sweet, how purely womanly she was! Those imploring eyes--which
he had grown quite sick of in Constantinople, for they were as full of
pathetic entreaty when she merely begged him to hold her cloak for
her as when she appealed to his heart of hearts not to leave her--that
entrancing play of glances which had first bewitched him, came to him
to-day as something new and worked the old spell.

In this moment of tender reunion he had promised her at any rate to
consider whether he could not release himself from the pledge by which
he was bound; but hardly had he spoken the words when the memory of
Paula revived in his mind, and an inward voice cried out to him that
she was a being of nobler mould than this yielding, weak woman, abject
before him--that she symbolized his upward struggle, Heliodora his
perdition.

At length he was able to tear himself from her embrace; and at the first
step out of this intoxication into real life again he looked about like
one roused from sleep, feeling as though it we