nown the awful
end of such a flame once kindled. But could I inspire love? Could you
love me? That was all in the world I cared about--thinking nothing of
the end, knowing all hope was dead for me, and nothing in life unless
you loved me. O Carus, if I have inspired one brief moment of
tenderness in you, deal mercifully with the sin! Guilty as I am, false
as I am, I can not add a lie and say that I am sorry that you love me,
that for one blessed moment you said you loved me. Now it is ended. I
can not be your wife. I am too mean, too poor a thing for hate. Deal
with me gently, Carus, lest your wrath strike me dead here at the altar
of outraged Love!"

I rose to my feet, feeling blindly for support, and rested against the
great carved columns of the bed. A cold rage froze me, searching every
vein with icy numbness that left me like a senseless thing. That
passed; I roused, breathing quietly and deeply, and looked about,
furtive, lest the familiar world around had changed to ashes, too.

Presently my dull senses were aware of what was at my feet, kneeling
there, face buried in clasped hands, too soft, too small, too frail to
hold a man's whole destiny. And, as I bent to kiss them, I scarce dared
clasp them, scarce dared lift her to my arms, scarce dared meet the
frightened wonder in her eyes, and the full sweetness of them, and the
love breaking through their azure, as I think day must dawn in
paradise!

"Now, in the name of God," I breathed, "we two, always forever one,
through life, through death, here upon earth, and afterward! I wed you
now with heart and soul, and ring your body with my arms! I stand your
champion, I kneel your lover, Elsin, till that day breaks on a red
reckoning with him who did this sin! Then I shall wed you. Will you
take me?"

She placed her hands on my shoulders, gazing at me from her very soul.

"You need not wed me--so that you love me, Carus."

Arms enlacing one another, we walked the floor in silence, slowly
passing from her chamber into mine, and back again, heads erect,
challenging that Destiny whose shadowy visage we could now gaze on
unafraid.

The dusk of day was dissolving to a silvery night, through which the
white-throat's song floated in distant, long-drawn sweetness. The
little stream's whisper grew louder, too; and I heard the trees
stirring in slumber, and the breeze in the river-reeds.

There, at the open window, standing, she lifted her sweet face, looking
into mine