ght some strength revived in me, and I spoke:--

"Olalla," I said, "nothing matters; I ask nothing; I am content; I love
you."

She knelt down a while and prayed, and I devoutly respected her
devotions. The moon had begun to shine in upon one side of each of the
three windows, and make a misty clearness in the room, by which I saw
her indistinctly. When she re-arose she made the sign of the cross.

"It is for me to speak," she said, "and for you to listen. I know; you
can but guess. I prayed, how I prayed for you to leave this place. I
begged it of you, and I know you would have granted me even this; or if
not, oh let me think so!"

"I love you," I said.

"And yet you have lived in the world," she said; after a pause, "you are
a man and wise; and I am but a child. Forgive me, if I seem to teach,
who am as ignorant as the trees of the mountain; but those who learn
much do but skim the face of knowledge; they seize the laws, they
conceive the dignity of the design--the horror of the living fact fades
from their memory. It is we who sit at home with evil who remember, I
think, and are warned and pity. Go, rather, go now, and keep me in mind.
So I shall have a life in the cherished places of your memory; a life as
much my own as that which I lead in this body."

"I love you," I said once more; and reaching out my weak hand, took
hers, and carried it to my lips, and kissed it. Nor did she resist, but
winced a little; and I could see her look upon me with a frown that was
not unkindly, only sad and baffled. And then it seemed she made a call
upon her resolution; plucked my hand towards her, herself at the same
time leaning somewhat forward, and laid it on the beating of her heart.
"There," she cried, "you feel the very footfall of my life. It only
moves for you; it is yours. But is it even mine? It is mine indeed to
offer you, as I might take the coin from my neck, as I might break a
live branch from a tree, and give it you. And yet not mine! I dwell, or
I think I dwell (if I exist at all), somewhere apart, an impotent
prisoner, and carried about and deafened by a mob that I disown. This
capsule, such as throbs against the sides of animals, knows you at a
touch for its master; ay, it loves you! But my soul, does my soul? I
think not; I know not, fearing to ask. Yet when you spoke to me, your
words were of the soul; it is of the soul that you ask--it is only from
the soul that you would take me."

"Olalla," I said, "th