One night, almost happy again, as he lay by the side of Beatrice, who was sleeping deeply, he rose stealthily, and looked out into the wood.

The moonlight fell through it mysteriously, as on that night when he had stolen up there to meet Silencieux—­“at the rising of the moon.”  He could hesitate no longer.  Leaving Beatrice asleep, he was soon making his way once more through the moonlit trees.

The little chalet looked very still and solemn, like a temple of Chaldean mysteries, and an unwonted chill of fear passed through Antony as he stood in the circle of moonlight outside.  His spirit seemed aware of some dread menace to the future in that moment, and a voice was crying within him to go back.

But the longing that had brought him so far was too strong for such undefined warnings.  Once more he turned the key in the lock, and looked on Silencieux once more.

The moonlight fell over her face like a veil of silver, and on her eyelashes was a glitter of tears.

Her face was alive again, alive too with a softness of womanhood he had never seen before.

“Forgive me, Antony,” she said.  “I loved you all the time.”

What else need Silencieux say!

“But it was so strange,” said Antony after a while, “so strange.  I could have borne the pain, if only I could have understood.”

“Shall I tell you the reason, Antony?”

“Yes.”

“It was because I saw in your eyes a thought of Beatrice.  For a moment your thoughts had forsaken me and gone to pity Beatrice.  I saw it in your eyes.”

“Poor Beatrice!” said Antony.  “It is little indeed I give her.  Could you not spare her so little, Silencieux?”

“I can spare her nothing.  You must be all mine, Antony—­your every thought and hope and dream.  So long as there is another woman in the world for you except me, I cannot be yours in the depths of my being, nor you mine.  There must always be something withheld.  It will never be perfect, until—­”

“Until when?”

“Until, Antony,”—­and Silencieux lowered her voice to an awful whisper,—­“until you have made for me the human sacrifice.”

“The human sacrifice!”

“Yes, Antony,—­all my lovers have done that for me.  They were not really mine till then.  Some have brought me many such offerings.  Antony, when will you bring me the human sacrifice?”

“O Silencieux!”

Antony’s heart chilled with terror at Silencieux’s words.  It was against this that the voices had warned him as he came up the wood.  O that he had never seen Silencieux more, never heard her poisonous voice again!

As one fleeing before the shadow of uncommitted sin that gains upon him at each stride, Antony fled from the place, and sought the moors.  The moon was near its setting, and soon the dawn would throw open the eastern doors of the sky.  He walked on and on, waiting, praying for, stifling for the light; and, at last, with a freshening of the air, and faint sounds of returning consciousness from distant farms, it came.