“Ah!” she replied, “how can I help it? He woke me from worse than death; he loved me. I had never been for thee, if he had not sought me first. But I love him not as I love thee. He was but the moon of my night; thou art the sun of my day, O beloved.” “Thou art right,” returned the noble man. “It were hard, indeed, not to have some love in return for such a gift as he hath given thee. I, too, owe him more than words can speak.” Humbled before them, with an aching and desolate heart, I yet could not restrain my words: “Let me, then, be the moon of thy night still, O woman! And when thy day is beclouded, as the fairest days will be, let some song of mine comfort thee, as an old, withered, half-forgotten thing, that belongs to an ancient mournful hour of uncompleted birth, which yet was beautiful in its time.” They sat silent, and I almost thought they were listening. The colour of the lady’s eyes grew deeper and deeper; the slow tears grew, and filled them, and overflowed. They rose, and passed, hand in hand, close to where I stood; and each looked towards me in passing. Then they disappeared through a door which closed behind them; but, ere it closed, I saw that the room into which it opened was a rich chamber, hung with gorgeous arras. I stood with an ocean of sighs frozen in my bosom. I could remain no longer. She was near me, and I could not see her; near me in the arms of one loved better than I, and I would not see her, and I would not be by her. But how to escape from the nearness of the best beloved? I had not this time forgotten the mark; for the fact that I could not enter the sphere of these living beings kept me aware that, for me, I moved in a vision, while they moved in life. I looked all about for the mark, but could see it nowhere; for I avoided looking just where it was. There the dull red cipher glowed, on the very door of their secret chamber. Struck with agony, I dashed it open, and fell at the feet of the ancient woman, who still spun on, the whole dissolved ocean of my sighs bursting from me in a storm of tearless sobs. Whether I fainted or slept, I do not know; but, as I returned to consciousness, before I seemed to have power to move, I heard the woman singing, and could distinguish the words: O light of dead and of dying days! O Love! in thy glory go, In a rosy mist and a moony maze, O’er the pathless peaks of snow. But what is left for the cold gray soul, That moans like a wounded dove? One wine is left in the broken bowl!— ‘Tis—_To love, and love and love_. Now I could weep. When she saw me weeping, she sang: Better to sit at the waters’ birth, Than a sea of waves to win; To live in the love that floweth forth, Than the love that cometh in. Be thy heart a well of love, my child, Flowing, and free, and sure; For a cistern of love, though undefiled, Keeps not the spirit pure. I rose from the earth, loving the white lady as I had never loved her before.