"Veronica probably will not understand you, but you must manage for yourself. As you have discerned, she and I are far apart. She is pure, noble, beautiful, and peculiar. I will have no voice between you."
"You must, you do. We shall hear it if you do not speak. You have a great power, tall enchantress."
"Certainly. What a powerful life is mine!"
"You come to these shores often. Are you not different beside them? This colorless picture before us—these vague spaces of sea and land—the motion of the one—the stillness of the other—have you no sense that you have a powerful spirit?"
"Is it power? It is pain."
"Your gold has not been refined then."
"Yes, I confess I have a sense of power; but it is not a spiritual sense."
"Let us go back," he said abruptly.
We mused by our footprints in the wet sand, as we passed them. We were told when we reached home that Veronica had gone on some expedition with Fanny. She did not return till time for supper, looking elfish, and behaving whimsically, as if she had received instructions accordingly. I fancied that the expression Ben regarded her with might be the Bellevue Pickersgill expression, it was so different from any I had seen. There was a haughty curiosity in his face; as she passed near him, he looked into her eyes, and saw the strange cast which made their sight so far off.
"Veronica, where are you?" he asked.