Here she finds him!
He is asleep! He is lying on his back, with his arms behind his tired head, and his beautiful face uplifted to the heavens. Upon his long dark lashes lie signs of bitter tears.
Who shall tell what thoughts had been his before kind sleep fell upon his lids and drove him into soothing slumber
"The sweetest joy, the wildest woe, is love;
The taint of earth, the odor of the skies
Is in it."
So sings Bailey. More of wild woe than joy must have been in Fabian's heart before oblivion came to him. Was he thinking of her—of Portia? For many days his heart has been "darkened by her shadow," and to-night—when all his world was abroad, and he alone was excluded from prostrating himself at her shrine—terrible despair had come to lodge with him, and grief, and passionate protest.
Stooping over him, Portia gazes on him long and earnestly, and then, as no dew lies upon the grass, she sits down beside him, and taking her knees into her embrace, stays there silent but close to him, her eyes fixed upon the "patient stars," that are at last growing pale with thought of the coming morn.
The whole scene is full of fantastic beauty—the dawning day; the man lying full length upon the soft green moss in an attitude suggestive of death; the girl, calm, passionless, clad in her white clinging gown, with her arms crossed, and her pale, upturned face beautiful as the dawn itself.
The light is breaking through the skies; the stars are dying out one by one. On the crest of the hill, and through the giant firs, soft beams are coming; and young Apollo, leaping into life, sends out a crimson ray from the far East.
Below, the ocean is at rest—wrapt in sullen sleep. "The singing of the soft blue waves is hushed, or heard no more." And no sound comes to disturb the unearthly solemnity of the hour. Only a little breeze comes from the south, soft and gentle, and full of tenderest love that is as the
"Kiss of morn, waking the lands."