see thee stand!
The agate lamp within thy hand.'

That's what I should put under it; you know the lines, don't you?"

"Yes, Mr. Meyer, but I am afraid you will have to paint your picture
from memory, as I cannot hold up this lamp any longer; my arm is aching
already. I do not know how you came here, but as you have followed me
perhaps you will be so kind as to carry this water."

"I did not follow you, Miss Clifford. Although you never saw me I
entered the cave before you to take measurements."

"How can you take measurements in the dark?"

"I was not in the dark. I put out my light when I caught sight of you,
knowing that otherwise you would run away, and fate stood me in good
stead. You came on, as I willed that you should do. Now let us talk.
Miss Clifford, have you changed your mind? You know the time is up."

"I shall never change my mind. Let me pass you, Mr. Meyer."

"No, no, not until you have listened. You are very cruel to me, very
cruel indeed. You do not understand that, rather than do you the
slightest harm, I would die a hundred times."

"I do not ask you to die; I ask you to leave me alone--a much easier
matter."

"But how can I leave you alone when you are a part of me, when--I love
you? There, the truth is out, and now say what you will."

Benita lifted the bucket of water; its weight seemed to steady her. Then
she put it down again, since escape was impracticable; she must face the
situation.

"I have nothing to say, Mr. Meyer, except that _I_ do not love _you_ or
any living man, and I never shall. I thank you for the compliment you
have paid me, and there is an end."

"Any living man," he repeated after her. "That means you love a dead
man--Seymour, he who was drowned. No wonder that I hated him when first
my eyes fell on him years ago, long before you had come into our lives.
Prescience, the sub-conscious self again. Well, what is the use of
loving the dead, those who no longer have any existence, who have
gone back into the clay out of which they were formed and are not, nor
evermore shall be? You have but one life; turn, turn to the living, and
make it happy."

"I do not agree with you, Mr. Meyer. To me the dead are still living;
one day I shall find them. Now let me go."

"I will not let you go. I will plead and wrestle with you as in the
old fable my namesake of my own race wrestled with the angel, until at
length you bless me. You despise me because I am a Jew, because I h