silvan
pleasantness and looking at her husband with undecipherable eyes. A
weakness both of the body and mind fell on him like the beginnings of
sleep; the cords of his activity were relaxed, his eyes clung to her.
'Let us rest,' he said; and he made her sit down, and himself sat down
beside her on the slope of an inconsiderable mound.

She sat with her eyes downcast, her slim hand dabbling in grass, like a
maid waiting for love's summons. The sound of the wind in the forest
swelled and sank, and drew near them with a running rush, and died away
and away in the distance into fainting whispers. Nearer hand, a bird out
of the deep covert uttered broken and anxious notes. All this seemed but
a halting prelude to speech. To Otto it seemed as if the whole frame of
nature were waiting for his words; and yet his pride kept him silent.
The longer he watched that slender and pale hand plucking at the grasses,
the harder and rougher grew the fight between pride and its kindly
adversary.

'Seraphina,' he said at last, 'it is right you should know one thing: I
never . . .' He was about to say 'doubted you,' but was that true? And,
if true, was it generous to speak of it? Silence succeeded.

'I pray you, tell it me,' she said; 'tell it me, in pity.'

'I mean only this,' he resumed, 'that I understand all, and do not blame
you. I understand how the brave woman must look down on the weak man. I
think you were wrong in some things; but I have tried to understand it,
and I do. I do not need to forget or to forgive, Seraphina, for I have
understood.'

'I know what I have done,' she said. 'I am not so weak that I can be
deceived with kind speeches. I know what I have been--I see myself. I
am not worth your anger, how much less to be forgiven! In all this
downfall and misery, I see only me and you: you, as you have been always;
me, as I was--me, above all! O yes, I see myself: and what can I think?'

'Ah, then, let us reverse the parts!' said Otto. 'It is ourselves we
cannot forgive, when we deny forgiveness to another--so a friend told me
last night. On these terms, Seraphina, you see how generously _I_ have
forgiven myself. But am not I to be forgiven? Come, then, forgive
yourself--and me.'

She did not answer in words, but reached out her hand to him quickly. He
took it; and as the smooth fingers settled and nestled in his, love ran
to and fro between them in tender and transforming currents.

'Seraphina,'