-alone in the midst of Nature. I was
for myself the only consciousness in the world, and all the world
besides was merely a variety of material and impression, to be observed
and known, to be interested in and delighted with. I was thus lonely,
lonely as a despot, when Nora, your sister, appeared to me, and
instantly I became aware there was another consciousness in the world as
great as, or greater than, my own,--another person than myself, a person
of supreme beauty and intelligence and faculty. She became to me all
that Nature had been, and more. She expressed for me all that I had
sought to find diffused through Nature, and at the same time she stood
forth to me as an equal of my own kind, with as great a capacity for
life. At first I had a vision of our living and reigning together, so to
say, though the word may seem to you absurd; but I soon discovered that
there was a gulf fixed between us,--the gulf of the life I had lived;
she stood pure where I had stood a dozen years ago. So, gradually, she
subverted my whole scheme of life; more and more, without knowing it,
she made me see and judge myself with her eyes, till I felt altogether
abased before her. But that which finally stripped the veil from me, and
showed me myself as the hateful incarnation of relentlessly devouring
Self, was my influence upon her, which culminated in the event of last
night. Can you conceive how I was smitten and pierced with horror by the
discovery that rose on me like a nightmare, that even on her sweet,
pure, sumptuous life, I had unwittingly begun to prey? For that
discovery flung wide the door of the future and showed me what I would
become.

"Beautiful, calm, divine Nora! If I could but have continued near her
without touching her, to delight in the thought and the sight of her, as
one delights in the wind and the sunshine! But it could not be. I could
only appear fit company for her if I refreshed and strengthened myself
as I had been wont; but my new disgust of myself, and pity for my
victims, made me shudder at the thought. What then? Here I am, and the
time has come (as that old doctor said it would) when death appears more
beautiful and friendly and desirable than life. Forgive me,
Lefevre--forgive me on Nora's part,--and forgive me in the name of human
nature."

Lefevre could not reply for the moment. He sat convulsed with
heartrending sobs. He put out his hand to Julius.

"No, no!" exclaimed Julius, "I must not take your