That was the other kind. But both were desire; the desire which drove humanity from Paradise, and keeps it vainly seeking for one still.
Saturated as he was with the mysticism of the East and West, these thoughts came to him, dreamily, making him feel curiously aloof from himself. The pity of it filled him, and brought a pity for the dying girl also; the girl who had failed to find a paradise in this world, and was seeking a new road to it; seeking it alone. The only thing she craved in all God's earth to make that paradise--gone! Priest as he was, the humanity in him rose in passionate hope that she should not wake to the consciousness of this. What good would it do? Let her enter the shadows in peace.
But as he wished the wish, her head, which had been resting on his arm, turned to the touch of it, and her smooth cheek nestled closer to what it found.
"Kiss me, Vincent," she said, and her voice came back full, rich, round, to make the claim. "Kiss me before you go, dear!"
The old man gave a slight shiver, and was silent.
"Vincent!" came the voice again; "you are there, aren't you? You wouldn't leave me--now--surely?"
There was another silent pause, and then, silent still, Father Ninian stooped, and the old lips and the young ones met in a lover's kiss. And as they met, he knew that in that kiss lay the great renunciation of his life; that henceforward there would be no woman waiting in Paradise for him; that the spiritual presence had gone from his life like the bodily presence. That Margherita was Juliet, and Juliet, Margherita!
"That's nice," murmured Laila, softly; "that's nice."
Her head settled to his arm again, and the silence went on. On and on, till he stooped lower to listen for an unheard breath; then lower still to shift that head from his arm to the ground. For the need of a human touch, a human sympathy, had gone forever.
He made the sign of the cross over the dead body, rose to his feet unsteadily, and looked about him, dazed, uncertain. In truth, he felt all his years for the first time; felt that his last hold on life had somehow gone from him in that kiss; that something more than one woman lay dead before him.