“Oh, Don Ippolito,” she grieved. “What shall I say to you, what can I do for you, now?” But there was nothing to do. The whole edifice of his dreams, his wild imaginations, had fallen into dust at a word; no magic could rebuild it; the end that never seems the end had come. He let her keep his cold hands, and presently he returned the entreaty of her tears with his wan, patient smile. “You cannot help me; there is no help for an error like mine. Sometime, if ever the thought of me is a greater pain than it is at this moment, you can forgive me. Yes, you can do that for me.” “But who, _who_ will ever forgive me” she cried, “for my blindness! Oh, you must believe that I never thought, I never dreamt”-- “I know it well. It was your fatal truth that did it; truth too high and fine for me to have discerned save through such agony as.... You too loved my soul, like the rest, and you would have had me no priest for the reason that they would have had me a priest--I see it. But you had no right to love my soul and not me--you, a woman. A woman must not love only the soul of a man.” “Yes, yes!” piteously explained the girl, “but you were a priest to me!” “That is true, madamigella. I was always a priest to you; and now I see that I never could be otherwise. Ah, the wrong began many years before we met. I was trying to blame you a little”-- “Blame me, blame me; do!” --“but there is no blame. Think that it was another way of asking your forgiveness.... O my God, my God, my God!” He released his hands from her, and uttered this cry under his breath, with his face lifted towards the heavens. When he looked at her again, he said: “Madamigella, if my share of this misery gives me the right to ask of you”-- “Oh ask anything of me! I will give everything, do everything!” He faltered, and then, “You do not love me,” he said abruptly; “is there some one else that you love?” She did not answer. “Is it ... he?” She hid her face. “I knew it,” groaned the priest, “I knew that too!” and he turned away. “Don Ippolito, Don Ippolito--oh, poor, poor Don Ippolito!” cried the girl, springing towards him. “Is _this_ the way you leave me? Where are you going? What will you do now?” “Did I not say? I am going to die a priest.” “Is there nothing that you will let me be to you, hope for you?” “Nothing,” said Don Ippolito, after a moment. “What could you?” He seized the hands imploringly extended towards him, and clasped them together and kissed them both. “Adieu!” he whispered; then he opened them, and passionately kissed either palm; “adieu, adieu!” A great wave of sorrow and compassion and despair for him swept through her. She flung her arms about his neck, and pulled his head down upon her heart, and held it tight there, weeping and moaning over him as over some hapless, harmless thing that she had unpurposely bruised or killed. Then she suddenly put her hands against his breast, and thrust him away, and turned and ran.