was her treatment of me: she
regarded me with a kind of awe. And after it had proved abortive to
tell her something and not all, because the pleasure of unbosoming
myself of so much love was too great to restrain, I found Rachel not
only full of faith, but even surpassing me. She looked upon Manmat'ha
as a supernatural being, and plainly invested me with reflected
holiness. Some sort of worship she thought due to Manmat'ha, whilst I,
as high priest and mortal consort, was entitled to a share; and indeed
it was with some difficulty that I persuaded her not to show her faith
by uncouth rites. It was as if her life had been a preparation for
some such affair as this, and found her enthusiastic, but not
astonished.

Our favorite resort was the couch of pine needles looking south from
the hillside where we first met. The same hawk, to me the most blessed
of birds, would often sail as before in the middle distance, or
night-hawks would cut their strange curves in the evening sky. Far out
beyond, sea-gulls, mere specks of white, would wheel and plunge into
the bay, and at our backs the woodcock, shy enough in any other
presence, would whir fantastically through the woods. All nature was
the same, but I was no longer its solitary admirer, for I held in my
arms a gentle framework of delight such as no other man before or
since has known. She was finer than the finest silk, smoother than the
smoothest glass, as if the rays of light, falling on the amazing
texture of her skin, found no inequalities from which to reflect.

One evening we had been drawing in long breaths of that delight of
which the woods and the great bowl of landscape before us were so
full, and I had been trying to convince Manmat'ha of the importance
of the marriage ceremony. "What," I asked with some trouble in my
heart, "what will they do to you in case members of your nation
discover your position? I do not mean to ask you what you would not
tell me before, but what would be their first step?"

"They would imprison me somewhere under a guard," said Manmat'ha. "It
would be many months before a tribunal could be collected together,
and still longer before I should be judged. What my fate would be
then, it is not well to say."

Had I desired, there is little doubt that I could have compelled
Manmat'ha to tell me all she knew, for I had found that my will was
much the stronger. But what was curiosity compared with the delight of
warming her into responsive