d at Portland. The finding of Dea made that
dismal night a radiant date for him.

The memory of Dea, even more than that of Gwynplaine, was lost in
clouds. In so young a child all remembrance melts away. She recollected
her mother as something cold. Had she ever seen the sun? Perhaps so. She
made efforts to pierce into the blank which was her past life.

"The sun!--what was it?"

She had some vague memory of a thing luminous and warm, of which
Gwynplaine had taken the place.

They spoke to each other in low tones. It is certain that cooing is the
most important thing in the world. Dea often said to Gwynplaine,--

"Light means that you are speaking."

Once, no longer containing himself, as he saw through a muslin sleeve
the arm of Dea, Gwynplaine brushed its transparency with his lips--ideal
kiss of a deformed mouth! Dea felt a deep delight; she blushed like a
rose. This kiss from a monster made Aurora gleam on that beautiful brow
full of night. However, Gwynplaine sighed with a kind of terror, and as
the neckerchief of Dea gaped, he could not refrain from looking at the
whiteness visible through that glimpse of Paradise.

Dea pulled up her sleeve, and stretching towards Gwynplaine her naked
arm, said,--

"Again!"

Gwynplaine fled.

The next day the game was renewed, with variations.

It was a heavenly subsidence into that sweet abyss called love.

At such things heaven smiles philosophically.

CHAPTER VII.

BLINDNESS GIVES LESSONS IN CLAIRVOYANCE.

At times Gwynplaine reproached himself. He made his happiness a case of
conscience. He fancied that to allow a woman who could not see him to
love him was to deceive her.

What would she have said could she have suddenly obtained her sight? How
she would have felt repulsed by what had previously attracted her! How
she would have recoiled from her frightful loadstone! What a cry! What
covering of her face! What a flight! A bitter scruple harassed him. He
told himself that such a monster as he had no right to love. He was a
hydra idolized by a star. It was his duty to enlighten the blind star.

One day he said to Dea,--

"You know that I am very ugly."

"I know that you are sublime," she answered.

He resumed,--

"When you hear all the world laugh, they laugh at me because I am
horrible."

"I love you," said Dea.

After a silence, she added,--

"I was in death; you brought me to life. When you are here, heaven is by
my side. Give me your