evening.  At table their knees, their elbows, touched; they drank from the same cup; the sun shone through the pane, but it was only the sun, and Dea was Love.  At night they slept not far from each other; and the dream of Dea came and hovered over Gwynplaine, and the dream of Gwynplaine spread itself mysteriously above the head of Dea.  When they awoke they could be never quite sure that they had not exchanged kisses in the azure mists of dreams.  Dea was all innocence; Ursus, all wisdom.  They wandered from town to town; and they had for provision and for stimulant the frank, loving gaiety of the people.  They were angel vagabonds, with enough of humanity to walk the earth and not enough of wings to fly away; and now all had disappeared!  Where was it gone?  Was it possible that it was all effaced?  What wind from the tomb had swept over them?  All was eclipsed!  All was lost!  Alas! power, irresistible and deaf to appeal, which weighs down the poor, flings its shadow over all, and is capable of anything.  What had been done to them?  And he had not been there to protect them, to fling himself in front of them, to defend them, as a lord, with his title, his peerage, and his sword; as a mountebank, with his fists and his nails!

And here arose a bitter reflection, perhaps the most bitter of all.  Well, no; he could not have defended them.  It was he himself who had destroyed them; it was to save him, Lord Clancharlie, from them; it was to isolate his dignity from contact with them, that the infamous omnipotence of society had crushed them.  The best way in which he could protect them would be to disappear, and then the cause of their persecution would cease.  He out of the way, they would be allowed to remain in peace.  Into what icy channel was his thought beginning to run!  Oh! why had he allowed himself to be separated from Dea?  Was not his first duty towards her?  To serve and to defend the people?  But Dea was the people.  Dea was an orphan.  She was blind; she represented humanity.  Oh! what had they done to them?  Cruel smart of regret!  His absence had left the field free for the catastrophe.  He would have shared their fate; either they would have been taken and carried away with him, or he would have been swallowed up with them.  And, now, what would become of him without them?  Gwynplaine without Dea!  Was it possible?  Without Dea was to be without everything.  It was all over now.  The beloved group was for ever buried in irreparable disappearance.  All was spent.  Besides, condemned and damned as Gwynplaine was, what was the good of further struggle?  He had nothing more to expect either of men or of heaven.  Dea!  Dea!  Where is Dea?  Lost!  What? lost?  He who has lost his soul can regain it but through one outlet—­death.

Gwynplaine, tragically distraught, placed his hand firmly on the parapet, as on a solution, and looked at the river.

It was his third night without sleep.  Fever had come over him.  His thoughts, which he believed to be clear, were blurred.  He felt an imperative need of sleep.  He remained for a few instants leaning over the water.  Its darkness offered him a bed of boundless tranquillity in the infinity of shadow.  Sinister temptation!