no! No, no--ten thousand times no! The mere
recollection of such an hour as this is worth a life-time of the awful
pain of loss of which you speak and which is around me already."

"That was my own judgment when I first recognized that a strong mutual
'draw' was bringing us together. I foresaw this moment, and deliberately
acquiesced in fate."

Now the soft waves of her hair swept his face, now the satin smoothness
of her cheek lay against his. Lips met lips again and again, and never
for a moment did the clasp of that firm embrace relax. The dead blank
hopelessness of life and its conditions, then, had still contained this,
had culminated in this? As he thus held her to him, as though he would
hold her forever, some dreamy brain-wave seemed to carry Laurence's mind
into the dim and somewhat awesome vistas of the future, to bring it face
to face with death in varying and appalling forms. What mattered! The
recollection of this farewell hour here, in the half-shaded room, with
its subtile fragrance of flowers and mysterious light, would be with him
then. Such an hour as this would be a crowning triumph to the apex of
life. Better that life should end than lengthen out to witness a decline
from this apex.

As Lilith had said, he was cruel and pitiless in his love. What then? It
was characteristic of him. Had not all experience taught him that the
slightest weakness, the slightest compunction, was that faulty link
which should snap the chain, be the latter never so massively forged? He
remembered how they had held discussion as to whether right might ensue
from what was wrong in the abstract. He remembered the cold, hard
imprint of the revolver-muzzle against his forehead, the increasing
pressure of his thumb upon the trigger, then the thought of Lilith's
love had come in as a hand stretched forth to snatch him from the jaws
of death. And it had so snatched him. What were the mere conventional
rules of abstract right or wrong beside such an instance of cause and
effect? Old wives' fables.

They were standing up, face to face, looking into each other's eyes. The
hour was late now. Any moment the household might return. Both desired
that the last farewell should take place alone. Not for the sake of a
few more precious moments would they run the risk of being cheated out
of that last farewell.

"You sweet, cruel, pitiless torturer," Lilith said, locking her hands in
his, as they rose, "you have placed my life under