a man dying
of thirst, only to take it away again untasted and leave him to his
fate. She pitied him with all her heart, but there was nothing in her
compassion that at all resembled love. It was the purest and most
friendly affection, of the sort that lasts a lifetime and can devote
itself in almost any sacrifice; but it was all quite clear and
comprehensible, without the smallest element of the inexplicable
attraction that is deaf, and dumb, and, above all, blind, and which
proceeds from the deep prime cause and mover of nature, and mates lions
in the wilderness and birds in the air, and men and women among their
fellows, two and two, from generation to generation.

"Guido," said Cecilia, after a long silence, "do you not think that two
people can be very, very fond of each other all their lives, and trust
each other, and like to be together as much as possible, without being
married?"

She spoke quietly and steadily, trying to make her voice sound more
gentle than ever before; but there was no possibility of mistaking her
meaning. His thin hand started and shook under her soothing touch, and
then drew itself away. The light went out of his eyes and the rings of
shadow round them grew visibly darker as he turned his head painfully on
the damask cushion.

"Is that what you have come to say?" he asked, in a groan.

Cecilia leaned back in her chair and folded her hands. She felt as if
she had killed an unresisting, loving creature, as a sacrifice for her
fault.

"God forgive me if I have done wrong," she said, speaking to herself. "I
only mean to do right."

Guido moved his head on his cushion again, as if suffering unbearable
pain, and a sort of harsh laugh answered her words.

"Your God will forgive you," he said bitterly, after a moment. "Man made
God in his own image, and God must needs obey his creator. When you
cannot forgive yourself, you set up an image and ask it to pardon you. I
do not wonder."

The cruel words hurt her in more ways than one, and she drew her breath
between her teeth as if she had struck unawares against something sharp
and was repressing a cry of pain. Then there was silence for a long
time.

"Why do you stay here?" Guido asked, in a low tone, not looking at her.
"You cannot have anything more to say. You have done what you came to
do. Let me be alone."

"Guido!"

She touched his shoulder gently as he lay turned from her, but he moved
and pushed her away.

"It cannot give you