it was far harder to credit it, than it had ever been to believe that love was death-less. Yet I knew the truth. All things shrieked it into my cars. My well was dry. My oasis was withered. On the unlimited sand the birds lay dead in the sunlight; and their songs and echoes had departed for ever.
I know not whether I became mad; but I flung my hands towards the mocking sky and fell down upon my face and swooned.
When I revived I knew all. It forced its passage into my guarded brain; for I could not bar it out. I was her dupe. Her pretty tongue had wagged to full my heart while hers had skulked away to love another. Her word, her faith, her truth were all forgotten; and even as she lay in my last embrace that other's arms were about her soul. She had gone, gone to him! God help me for a miserable one; and God help her for a wicked woman!
3
Ah! There you are, laughing again. You seem, indeed, to laugh more merrily than of
