t try me thus! Yet I ought to remember that--that it is not for
yourself you do it!"

He turned his back on her then, and on the window. He had taken three
steps towards the middle of the room, when she cried, "Wait!"

"Go!" he repeated with a backward gesture of the hand. "Go! and God
forgive you, as I do!"

"Wait!" she cried. "And take them! Oh, take them! Quick!" He turned
about slowly, almost with suspicion. She was holding the food and the
drink through the window, holding them out for him to take. But it
might be another deception. He was not sure, and for a moment a cunning
look gleamed in his eyes, and he took a step in a stealthy fashion
towards the window, as if, were she off her guard, he would snatch them
from her. But she cried again, "Take them! Take them!" with tears in
her voice. "I brought them for you. May God indeed forgive me!"

The craving was so strong upon him that he took them then without a
word, without answering her or thanking her. He turned his back on her,
as soon as he had possessed himself of them, as if he dared not let her
see the desire in his face; and standing thus, he drew the stopper from
the bottle of milk, and drank. He would fain have held the bottle to
his lips until he had drained the last drop: but he controlled himself,
and when he had swallowed a few mouthfuls, he removed it. Then, with
the solemnity of a sacrament, perhaps with the feeling that should
attend one, he broke off three or four small fragments of the bread,
and ate them one by one and slowly--the first with difficulty, the
second more easily, the third with an avidity which he checked only by
a firm effort of the will. "Presently!" he told himself. "Presently!
There is plenty, there is plenty." Yet he allowed himself two more
mouthfuls of bread and another sip of milk--milk that was nectar,
rather than any earthly drink his lips had ever encountered.

At length, with new life running in his veins, and not new life only,
but a pure thankfulness that she had proved herself very woman at the
last, he laid his treasures on the chair, and turned to her. She was
gone.

His face fell. For while he had eaten and drunk he had felt her
presence at his back, and once he was sure that he had heard her sob.
But she was gone. A chill fell upon his spirits. Yet she might not be
gone far. He staggered--for he was not yet steady on his feet--to the
window, and looked to right and left.

She had not gone far. She was lyi