Her hands grovelled among the rough, sticky pages. An odour as of decaying foliage, which she had never noted before, came from the book. It was such an odour as comes from dark, ill-ventilated rooms, and early autumn and everyday clothes. At last she found what she was seeking. "Kyrie eleison! Christe eleison! Dear God, Father in heaven, have mercy upon us!" Her lips babbled what her eyes saw, but her heart and her senses prayed another prayer: "Father in Heaven, who art love and mercy, do not count for sin to those two that which they are committing against themselves. Bless their love, even if they do not desire Thy blessing. Send faithfulness into their hearts that they cleave to one another and remain grateful for the bliss which Thou givest them. Ah, those happy ones, those happy ones!" Tears came into her eyes. She bent her face upon the yellow leaves of the book to hide her weeping. It seemed to her suddenly as though she understood the speech spoken in this land of eternal spring by sun and sea, by hedges of flowers and evergreen trees, by the song of birds and the laughter of man. The secret which she had sought to solve by day and by night lay suddenly revealed before her eyes. In a sudden change of feeling her heart grew cold toward that sinful pair for which she had but just prayed. Those people became as strangers to her and sank into the mist. Their whispering died away as if it came from a great distance. It was her own life with which she was now concerned. Gray and morose with its poverty stricken notion of duty, the past lay behind her. Bright and smiling a new world floated into her ken. She had sworn to love him. She had cheated him. She had let him know want at her side. Now that she knew what love was, she would reward him an hundred-fold. She, too, could love to madness, to adoration, to death. And she must love so, else she would die of famishment. Her heart opened. Waves of tenderness, stormy, thunderous, mighty, broke forth therefrom. Would he desire all that love? And understand it? Was he worthy of it? What did that matter? She must give, give without measure and without reward, without thought and without will, else she would smother under all her riches. And though he was broken and famished and mean of mind and wretched, a weakling in body and a dullard in soul; and though he lay there emaciated and gasping, a skeleton almost, moveless, half given over to dust and decay--what did it matter? She loved him, loved him with that new and great love because he alone in all the world was her own. He was that portion of life and light and happiness which fate had given her. She sprang up and stretched out her arms toward him. "You my only one, my all," she whispered, folding her hands under her chin and staring at him. His chest seemed quieter. He lay there in peace.