n the convent.... Ah, I should have stayed
there. It may be but a poor delusion, but it is better than such
wickedness."

"But I love you."

"Love me! ... You say you have sought love; we find love in
contemplation and desire of higher things. I am wanting in
experience, but I know that love lives in thought, and not in violent
passion; I know that a look from the loved one on entering a room,
a touch of a hand at most will suffice, and I should have been
satisfied to have seen your windows, and I should have gone away, my
heart stored with impressions of you, and I should have been happy
for weeks in the secret possession of such memories. So I have always
understood love; so we understood love in the convent."

They were standing face to face in the faint twilight and scent of
the bedroom. Through the gauze blind the river floated past,
decorative and grand; the great hay-boats rose above the wharfs and
steamers; one lay in the sun's silver casting a black shadow; a barge
rowed by one man drifted round and round in the tide.

"When I knelt in the choir I lifted my heart to the saint I loved.
How far was He from me? Millions of miles!--and yet He was very near.
I dreamed of meeting Him in heaven, of seeing Him come robed in white
with a palm in His hand, and then in a little darkness and dimness I
felt Him take me to His breast. I loved to read of the miracles He
performed, and one night I dreamed I saw Him in my cell--or was it
you?"

All anger was gone from her face, and it reflected the play of her
fancy. "I used to pray to you to come down and speak to me."

"And now," said Mike, smiling, "now that I have come to you, now that
I call you, now that I hold my arms to you--you the bride-elect--now
that the hour has come, shall I not possess you?"

"Do you think you can gain love by clasping me to your bosom? My
love, though separated from me by a million miles, is nearer to me
than yours has ever been."

"Did you not speak of me as the lover of your prayer, and you said
that in ecstasy the nuns--and indeed it must be so--exchange a
gibbeted saint for some ideal man? Give yourself; make this afternoon
memorable."

"No; good-bye! Remember your promises. Come; I am going."

"I must not lose you," he cried, drunk with her beauty and doubly
drunk with her sensuous idealism. "May I not even kiss you?"

"Well, if you like--once, just here," she said, pointing where white
melted to faint rose.

Mastered, he f