misery was self-created. You voluntarily degraded yourself.
What result could there be? Only suffering and shame."

"The good of others," she answered mournfully. "You cannot see it yet;
but I know--it was foretold me. I did my work there. Sometimes I hope
it is finished; but I do not know. One can never tell; at any time the
summons may come again. God help me if it does."

"Is your life in danger, then?" he asked, and again that chill and
horror seemed to thrill the pulses of his beating heart.

"My life!" She lifted her eyes and looked back at his with something
intensely mournful in her gaze. "As if _that_ mattered! What is my
life to me now, any more than it was then? Did I count the cost--did I
call it a sacrifice? Life--the mere material actual life of the body--
has never weighed with me for one moment. And yet," she added, in a
dull, strange voice, "I failed at the crucial test! Failed!--I, who had
denied to myself all woman's weakness, all mortal love, all fleshly
vanities--failed! I am no more now than the veriest beginner on the
path. I, who deemed myself so wise!"

Then she rose and came close to him, and laid her white hand on his arm.
"That," she said, "is why I needed you again. You can help me--you can
tell me where and how I failed."

That light touch thrilled his veins like sorcery. He bent his head and
passionately kissed the white, soft hand. "You failed, oh, my Princess!
because you are still mortal woman. Thank Heaven for it! You failed
because memory and love were still strong in your heart. You failed--
and I am by your side once more. Oh, let the past be forgotten! Brief
is life, but love is its Paradise, and into that Paradise our feet once
strayed. Fate stayed them on the threshold. But now--now--"

She raised her white face. "Do not deceive yourself," she said. "You
have always loved me too well--but I--"

"Only _let_ me love you!" he whispered passionately. "It is honour
enough. All the wide earth holds no other woman such as you. Having
once known you, there has never been a disloyal thought within my heart.
Read it--see for yourself."

"I read it," she said, "even while the music was sounding in your ears,
as you stood on the terrace there below; even while you moved amidst
that chattering, flippant throng, and heard what they said of me. No,
dear friend. You have nothing in that great frank, loyal soul to hide.
But I--there is something that whisp