hand, that I may touch heaven."

Their hands met and grasped each other. They spoke no more, but were
silent in the plenitude of love.

Ursus, who was crabbed, had overheard this. The next day, when the three
were together, he said,--

"For that matter, Dea is ugly also."

The word produced no effect. Dea and Gwynplaine were not listening.
Absorbed in each other, they rarely heeded such exclamations of Ursus.
Their depth was a dead loss.

This time, however, the precaution of Ursus, "Dea is also ugly,"
indicated in this learned man a certain knowledge of women. It is
certain that Gwynplaine, in his loyalty, had been guilty of an
imprudence. To have said, _I am ugly_, to any other blind girl than Dea
might have been dangerous. To be blind, and in love, is to be twofold
blind. In such a situation dreams are dreamt. Illusion is the food of
dreams. Take illusion from love, and you take from it its aliment. It is
compounded of every enthusiasm, of both physical and moral admiration.

Moreover, you should never tell a woman a word difficult to understand.
She will dream about it, and she often dreams falsely. An enigma in a
reverie spoils it. The shock caused by the fall of a careless word
displaces that against which it strikes. At times it happens, without
our knowing why, that because we have received the obscure blow of a
chance word the heart empties itself insensibly of love. He who loves
perceives a decline in his happiness. Nothing is to be feared more than
this slow exudation from the fissure in the vase.

Happily, Dea was not formed of such clay. The stuff of which other women
are made had not been used in her construction. She had a rare nature.
The frame, but not the heart, was fragile. A divine perseverance in love
was in the heart of her being.

The whole disturbance which the word used by Gwynplaine had produced in
her ended in her saying one day,--

"To be ugly--what is it? It is to do wrong. Gwynplaine only does good.
He is handsome."

Then, under the form of interrogation so familiar to children and to
the blind, she resumed,--

"To see--what is it that you call seeing? For my own part, I cannot see;
I know. It seems that _to see_ means to hide."

"What do you mean?" said Gwynplaine.

Dea answered,--

"To see is a thing which conceals the true."

"No," said Gwynplaine.

"But yes," replied Dea, "since you say you are ugly."

She reflected a moment, and then said, "Story-teller!"

Gwyn