that impossible thing, that he could have conceived of a stab dealt by her who would have given a thousand lives for him.

But, after all, she must not be too angry with him for it; had she not confessed her crime? had she not yielded, weak woman that she was, to torture? The fault was entirely hers. She should have allowed her finger nails to be torn out rather than such a word to be wrenched from her. In short, if she could but see Phoebus once more, for a single minute, only one word would be required, one look, in order to undeceive him, to bring him back. She did not doubt it. She was astonished also at many singular things, at the accident of Phoebus’s presence on the day of the penance, at the young girl with whom he had been. She was his sister, no doubt.

An unreasonable