Then he began to read.

How it went with them I know not, but I was soon entirely lost in what I heard.  With my head upon my arm I listened, the visions that he conjured filled my eyes, the music of his words engrossed my ears; more beautiful in form and purpose than anything he yet had written, this last canto filled me with joy and pride.

When the last words fell, I did not raise my head from the table.  Heaven knows why, but I did not want to let them see, not even them, that the tears were gushing from my eyes.

I heard Gabriel collect his papers and put them into his pocket; still none of us spoke.  It seemed time to break the silence.  I lifted my head and looked up at my poet.

There he sat with head thrown back and quivering lips; his eyes, wide with mingled fear and yearning, were fixed upon Constance, whose white, uplifted face was as the mirror of his own.  It was for an instant only; the next, they turned to me.

And so the tale was told; we sat there, we three, blenched and panic-stricken, gazing into each other’s eyes.

The time had come.  I rose, took their hands, and laid them together on the table.  I would have said something, but no words came; so, smiling simply into the face of each, I bent and kissed the intertwining fingers, then left the room.  I groped my way into the garden, and, standing on a flower-bed beneath the window, looked in upon them.  They sat as I had left them, with clasped hands and mingled gaze.  I think it was Constance that moved first, I am not sure, but they rose suddenly and fell into each other’s arms.  For an instant I looked upon them with a strange sense of exultation, as if, perhaps, I were the Spirit of Love, and not a jealous woman.  But when he turned back her white face with his hand and bent over her, all the woman in me returned.  I saw her little hands clutch him convulsively, she gave a low cry,—­and then I slipped from the window on to the ground.

How long I crouched there I cannot tell; I felt as one must feel that has been buried for dead and awakes in the grave.  There was mignonette beside me, and a clump of southern wood.  It was the sound of some one bounding down the steps that roused me.  Gabriel had left her.  I got up and shook my clothes, walking to and fro on the lawn.  When at length I thought of going home, I remembered that I had left my things in Constance’s room, and that it might seem strange in me to arrive at the house bareheaded.  So I went upstairs.  The passage was not quite dark; I could just see that Constance lay outside her bedroom door.  I stooped and tried to raise her, but she flung herself to my knees, crying: 

“Emilia!—­O my God!”

“Hush!” said I; “come into the room.  Hush! the servants might hear you.”

So I drew her in and would have laid her on her bed; but again she fell down and clasped my knees.

“Dear!” she cried; “dear, you loved me so, and this is what I have done.  Oh, Emilia, forgive me!—­Emilia, forgive me, oh, forgive me!”