more that she was denied to me! Yet I knew always that this love was
not in me what it was in you. With me it was, like many other emotions
of a similar sort--a sentiment that would pass. I tried to think
otherwise. But I had awakened her heart, and you, to whom the law had
given her, were gone!

"I waited long for your return, or for some sign.

"You neither came nor spoke.

"I argued that something must be done. I owed it to her to offer her
my protection.

"I came back here. I met her on this very spot. I said to her, 'You
are alone in the world--your mother has married--she has other
children. I have saddened your life with my love. Let me at least help
to cheer it again. You need affection. Here it is--in my arms!'

"And, while I waited for her answer, I prayed with all my soul that
she might deny me.

"God bless her! She did! I turned away from her with a glad heart, and
in that heart I enshrined this woman, who, loving me, had denied me.
There I set up her image, pure and inviolate. Two long years I stayed
away from her, and as I worked, I worshipped her, and out of that
worship I wrought a great thing.

"With time, however, her real image grew faint within me. Other
emotions, other experiences seemed to blur and dim it. In spite of
myself, I returned here. Once more I stood on this spot, within the