herself beside him, he drew her head down to rest upon his
shoulder and wound his arms about her.

"Why did you wait until even the twelfth hour?" he said. "Why did you
blind me all this time, my Lilith? Only think what we have lost by it!"

"Ah, yes, I have indeed. But tell me, dear one, it is not too late, is
it, even though it be the twelfth hour?"

"It came very near being too late. I had already started. Yes, it is
indeed the twelfth hour. Too late? I don't know," he went on, in a tone
of sombre bitterness. "Think of the blissful times that might have been
ours had I but known. I would have taught you the real meaning of the
word 'love.' I would have drawn your innermost soul from you--would have
drawn it into mine--have twined every thought of your being around
mine--had I but known. And I could have done this; you know I could, do
you not? Think a moment, then answer."

The head which rested on his shoulder seemed to lean heavier there; the
arm which encircled her was pressed tighter by hers to the round,
beautiful waist, as though to bring herself closer within his embrace.
The answer came, rapturously sweet, but with a thrill of pain:

"I know you could have. There is no need to think, even for a moment.
You have done it."

"I have tried to, even against difficulties. Come what may, Lilith, you
shall never be free from the spell of this love of ours. All thoughts of
other love shall be flat, and stale, and dead; and now, when I am gone,
your whole soul shall ache and throb with a sense of loss--love and pain
intertwined--yet not one pang of the latter would you forego, lest it
should lessen the rapturous keenness of the former in the minutest
degree. This is what you have caused _me_ to suffer by reason of your
stony self-command up till this morning. Now you shall suffer it too."

His tones were calm, even almost stern as those of a judge pronouncing
sentence. Lilith, drinking in every word, felt already that every word
was true. That sense of love and pain was already in possession of her
soul, and would retain possession until all capacity for feeling was
dulled and dead.

"You were cruel to draw my very soul out of me as you have done--to
force me to love you as I do," she answered--"cruel and pitiless."

"What then? I was but carrying out the program of life. It is that way.
But tell me, would you have preferred that I had not done it--that I had
passed by on the other side?"

"Oh, my Laurence,