The next day, in the high golden noon, Rose came. I was on the lounge in the alcove parlor, my hair half streaming out of Lu's net; but he didn't mind. The light was toned and mellow, the air soft and cool. He came and sat on the opposite side, so that he faced the wall table with its dish of white, stiflingly sweet lilies, while I looked down the drawing-room. He had brought a book, and by-and-by opened at the part commencing, "Do not die, Phene." He read it through,--all that perfect, perfect scene. From the moment when he said, "I overlean This length of hair and lustrous front,--they turn Like an entire flower upward,"-- his voice low, sustained, clear,--till he reached the line, "Look at the woman here with the new soul,"-- till he turned the leaf and murmured, "Shall to produce form out of unshaped stuff Be art,--and, further, to evoke a soul From form be nothing? This new soul is mine!"-- till then, he never glanced up. Now, with a proud grace, he raised his head,--not to look at me, but across me, at the lilies, to satiate himself with their odorous snowiness. When he again pronounced words, his voice was husky and vibrant; but what music dwelt in it and seemed to prolong rather than break the silver silence, as he echoed, "Some unsuspected isle in the far seas"! How many read to descend to a prosaic life! how few to meet one as rich and full beside them! The tone grew ever lower; he looked up slowly, fastening his glance on mine. "And you are ever by me while I gaze,-- Are in my arms, as now,--as now,--as now!" he said. He swayed forward with those wild questioning eyes,--his breath blew over my cheek; I was drawn,--I bent; the full passion of his soul broke to being, wrapped me with a blinding light, a glowing kiss on lingering lips, a clasp strong and tender as heaven. All my hair fell down like a shining cloud and veiled us, the great rolling folds in wave after wave of crisp splendor. I drew back from that long, silent kiss, I gathered up each gold thread of the straying tresses, blushing, defiant. He also, he drew back. But I knew all then. I had no need to wait longer; I had achieved. Rose loved me. Rose had loved me from that first day.--You scarcely hear what I say, I talk so low and fast? Well, no matter, dear, you wouldn't care.--For a moment that gaze continued, then the lids fell, the face grew utterly white. He rose, flung the book, crushed and torn, upon the floor, went out, speaking no word to me, nor greeting Louise in the next room. Could he have seen her? No. I, only, had that. For, as I drew from his arm, a meteoric crimson, shooting across the pale face bent over work there, flashed upon me, and then a few great tears, like sudden thunder-drops, falling slowly and wetting the heavy fingers. The long mirror opposite her reflected the interior of the alcove parlor. No,--he could not have seen, he must have felt her.