e over? It's a second wind, another 'go'--which isn't the sort of
thing life mostly treats us to. Mrs. Briss had to get her new blood, her
extra allowance of time and bloom, somewhere; and from whom could she so
conveniently extract them as from Guy himself? She _has_, by an
extraordinary feat of legerdemain, extracted them; and he, on his side,
to supply her, has had to tap the sacred fount. But the sacred fount is
like the greedy man's description of the turkey as an 'awkward' dinner
dish. It may be sometimes too much for a single share, but it's not
enough to go round."

Obert was at all events sufficiently struck with my view to throw out a
question on it. "So that, paying to his last drop, Mr. Briss, as you
call him, can only die of the business?"

"Oh, not yet, I hope. But before _her_--yes: long."

He was much amused. "How you polish them off!"

"I only talk," I returned, "as you paint; not a bit worse! But one must
indeed wonder," I conceded, "how the poor wretches feel."

"You mean whether Brissenden likes it?"

I made up my mind on the spot. "If he loves her he must. That is if he
loves her passionately, sublimely." I saw it all. "It's in fact just
because he does so love her that the miracle, for her, is wrought."

"Well," my friend reflected, "for taking a miracle coolly----!"

"She hasn't her equal? Yes, she does take it. She just quietly, but just
selfishly, profits by it."

"And doesn't see then how her victim loses?"

"No. She can't. The perception, if she had it, would be painful and
terrible--might even be fatal to the process. So she hasn't it. She
passes round it. It takes all her flood of life to meet her own chance.
She has only a wonderful sense of success and well-being. The _other_
consciousness----"

"Is all for the other party?"

"The author of the sacrifice."

"Then how beautifully 'poor Briss,'" my companion said, "must have it!"

I had already assured myself. He had gone to bed, and my fancy followed
him. "Oh, he has it so that, though he goes, in his passion, about with
her, he dares scarcely show his face." And I made a final induction.
"The agents of the sacrifice are uncomfortable, I gather, when they
suspect or fear that you see."

My friend was charmed with my ingenuity. "How you've worked it out!"

"Well, I feel as if I were on the way to something."

He looked surprised. "Something still more?"

"Something still more." I had an impulse to tell him I scarce knew