ill another
burst of sobs shook her like a leaf in the storm.

In very awe of such great grief Paul stood awhile silently over her, the
tears filling his own eyes and running down his cheeks unheeded. She had
wept something like this, though nothing like so long or so bitterly, on
former occasions, when he had urged her with special vehemence to fix a
day when she would fulfil her promise to be his wife.

Now, as he pondered the piteous spectacle before him, the thought came
over him that his first reverential instinct concerning her, that despite
her resumption of a mortal form she was something more than mortal, was
true, and that he had done wrong in so far forgetting it as to urge her
to be his wife as if she were merely a woman like others. She herself did
not know it, but surely this exceeding cruel crying was nothing else but
the conflict between the love of the woman which went out to her earthly
lover, and would fain make him happy, and the nature of the inhabitant of
heaven, where there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage. This was
the key to her inexplicable sorrow during the past weeks. This explained
why, though she loved him so tenderly, the thought of becoming his wife
was so intolerable to her.

So be it. Her nature could not sink to his, but his should rise to hers.
This brief dream of earthly passion must pass. Better a thousand times
that he should be disappointed in all that is dear to the heart of a man,
than that he should grieve her thus. In that moment it did not seem hard
to him to sacrifice the hopes of the man to the devotion of the lover. By
one great effort he rose again to the level of the ascetic passion that
had glorified his life up to these last delirious weeks. She had brought
heaven to earth for him, but it should still be heaven, since her
happiness demanded it.

And having reasoned thus, at last, for there seemed no end of her
weeping, or any diminution of its bitterness, he touched her. She
started, and turned her streaming eyes to him, then, seeing who it was,
threw her arms around his neck, and, as he sat beside her, laid her head
on his shoulder clinging to him convulsively.

"You don't believe I love you, Paul; and I can't blame you for it, I
can't blame you," she sobbed; "but I do, oh, I do!"

"I do believe it. I know it," he said. "Don't think that I doubt it, and
don't cry now, for after this your love shall be enough for me. I will
not trouble you any more with