hought you had gone from my sight for ever. It was then
that you took body in my imagination and that my mind seized on a
definite form of you for all its adorations--for its profanations, too.
Don't imagine me grovelling in spiritual abasement before a mere image.
I got a grip on you that nothing can shake now."

"Don't speak like this," she said. "It's too much for me. And there is
a whole long night before us."

"You don't think that I dealt with you sentimentally enough perhaps? But
the sentiment was there; as clear a flame as ever burned on earth from
the most remote ages before that eternal thing which is in you, which is
your heirloom. And is it my fault that what I had to give was real
flame, and not a mystic's incense? It is neither your fault nor mine.
And now whatever we say to each other at night or in daylight, that
sentiment must be taken for granted. It will be there on the day I
die--when you won't be there."

She continued to look fixedly at the red embers; and from her lips that
hardly moved came the quietest possible whisper: "Nothing would be easier
than to die for you."

"Really," I cried. "And you expect me perhaps after this to kiss your
feet in a transport of gratitude while I hug the pride of your words to
my breast. But as it happens there is nothing in me but contempt for
this sublime declaration. How dare you offer me this charlatanism of
passion? What has it got to do between you and me who are the only two
beings in the world that may safely say that we have no need of shams
between ourselves? Is it possible that you are a charlatan at heart?
Not from egoism, I admit, but from some sort of fear. Yet, should you be
sincere, then--listen well to me--I would never forgive you. I would
visit your grave every day to curse you for an evil thing."

"Evil thing," she echoed softly.

"Would you prefer to be a sham--that one could forget?"

"You will never forget me," she said in the same tone at the glowing
embers. "Evil or good. But, my dear, I feel neither an evil nor a sham.
I have got to be what I am, and that, _amigo_, is not so easy; because I
may be simple, but like all those on whom there is no peace I am not One.
No, I am not One!"

"You are all the women in the world," I whispered bending over her. She
didn't seem to be aware of anything and only spoke--always to the glow.

"If I were that I would say: God help them then. But that would be more
appropriate for T