, root and branch, core and knot, to feathery ashes
that you may scatter with a sigh--the only sigh you will ever breathe
for me, Unorna. Have I loved? Can I love? Do I love to-day as I loved
yesterday and shall love to-morrow? Ah, child! That you should ask that,
with your angel's face, when I am in hell for you! When I would give my
body to death and my soul to darkness for a touch of your hand, for as
much kindness and gentleness in a word from your dear lips as you give
the beggars in the street! When I would tear out my heart with my hands
to feed the very dog that fawns on you--and who is more to you than
I, because he is yours, and all that is yours I love, and worship, and
adore!"

Unorna had looked up and smiled at first, believing that it was all but
a comedy, as he had told her that it should be. But as he spoke, and the
strong words chased each other in the torrent of his passionate speech,
she was startled and surprised. There was a force in his language, a
fiery energy in his look, a ring of half-desperate hope in his deep
voice, which moved her to strange thoughts. His face, too, was changed
and ennobled, his gestures larger, even his small stature ceased, for
once, to seem dwarfish and gnome-like.

"Keyork Arabian, is it possible that you love me?" she cried, in her
wonder.

"Possible? True? There is neither truth nor possibility in anything else
for me, in anything, in any one, but you, Unorna. The service of my love
fills the days and the nights and the years with you--fills the world
with you only; makes heaven to be on earth, since heaven is but the air
that is made bright with your breath, as the temple of all temples is
but the spot whereon your dear feet stand. The light of life is where
you are, the darkness of death is everywhere where you are not. But I am
condemned to die, cut off, predestined to be lost--for you have no pity,
Unorna, you cannot find it in you to be sorry for the poor old man whose
last pulse will beat for you; whose last word will be your name; whose
last look upon your beauty will end the dream in which he lived his
life. What can it be to you, that I love you so? Why should it be
anything to you? When I am gone--with the love of you in my heart,
Unorna--when they have buried the ugly old body out of your sight, you
will not even remember that I was once your companion, still less that
I knelt before you, that I kissed the ground on which you stood; that I
loved you as me