Athalie

Lights yet burned on the lower floors and behind the drawn blinds of

Athalie's room. The night was quiet and soft and lovely; the moon

still young in its first quarter.

There was no wind to blow the fountain jet, so that every drop fell

straight back where the slim column of water broke against a strip of

stars above the garden wall. Somewhere in distant darkness the little

owl trilled.

* * * * *

If he were walking or motionless he no longer knew it; nor did he seem

to be aware of anything around.

Hafiz came up to him through the dusk with a little mew of recognition

or of loneliness. Afterward the cat followed him for a while and then

settled down upon the grass intent on the invisible stirring

stealthily in obscurity.

The fragrance of the iris grew sweeter, fresher. Many new buds had

unfolded since high noon. One stalk had fallen across the path and

Clive's dragging feet passed over it where he moved blindly, at

hazard, with stumbling steps along the path--errant, senseless, and

always blind.

For on the garden bench a young girl sat, slender, exquisite, smiling

as he approached. But he could not see her, nor could he see in her

arms the little flower-like face, and the tiny hands against her

breast.

"Clive!" she said. But he could not hear her.

"Clive," she whispered; "my beloved!"

But he could neither see nor hear. His knees, too, were failing; he

put out one hand, blindly, and sank down upon the garden bench.

All night long she sat beside him, her head against his shoulder,

sometimes touching his drawn face with warm, sweet lips, sometimes

looking down at the little face pressed to her quiet breast.

And all night long the light burned behind the closed blinds of her

room; and the little silvery dusk-moths floated in and out of the

rays. And Hafiz, sitting on the grass, watched them sometimes;

sometimes he gazed at his young mistress out of wide, unblinking eyes.

"Hafiz," she murmured lazily in her sweetly humorous way.

The cat uttered a soft little mew but did not move. And when she laid

her cheek close to Clive's whispering,--"I love you--I love you

so!"--he never stirred.

Her blue eyes, brooding, grew patient, calm, and tender; she looked

down silently into the little face close cradled in her arms.

Then the child's eyes opened like two blue stars; and she bent over in

a swift ecstasy of bliss, covering the flower-like face with kisses.