"

Before the warmth and passion of his words a faint color kindled in the
girl's cheeks as she gave him back assurance for assurance.

"I love you, Dante, as you love me, and if, on this earth, we should
never meet again, my love would remain unchangeable with the changing
days. If I that am now young live to be old, I shall think, with death
before me and Heaven behind the wings of death, that my withered body in
the Holy Field shall quicken into the fragrance of spring flowers
because of the cleanness and the sweetness of my faith. My love shall
keep the spirit of the girl that was Beatrice fresh and blithe for the
boy that was Dante when they meet again in Heaven beyond the frontier of
the stars."

Her voice seemed to fail a little as she spoke, but she held herself
erect, as if her unconquerable purpose lent her the strength she lacked.
Dante stood before her, silent, in a kind of awe. His passion for the
girl had always been so chastened by reverence, his desires so girdled
about by mystical emotions, that it seemed to him in that memorable hour
as if he and she were rather the priest and priestess of some fair and
ancient faith than man and woman that were lover and lover. His great
love seemed to burn about him like a fierce white flame consuming all
that was evil, all that was animal, in his corporeal being, and leaving
nothing after its fiery caress but a body so purified as to be scarcely
distinguishable from pure spirit. So Dante felt, enchanted, gazing in
adoration upon Beatrice, and reading in the rapture of her answering
eyes the same splendid, terrible exaltation.

The spell lasted for an age-long while, and then Beatrice broke it,
turning away from her lover's gaze, and as she did so Dante, lowering
his eyes, saw how upon a table near the girl there stood a little silver
casket, richly wrought with images of saints, and the lid of the casket
was lifted, and in the casket Dante saw that there lay a single red
rose, or, rather, that which had once been a red rose, but now lay
withered and faded, the mummy of its loveliness. Dante looked at it in
some wonder, and Beatrice followed his gaze and saw what he saw, and
turned to him, smiling.

"Forgive me, friend," she said, "if in the joy of seeing you I forgot to
thank you for your gift."

And Dante looked from the rose to her and from her to the rose, and his
wonder grew, and he said, quickly, "I sent you no gift."

Then Beatrice gazed at him in surp