As he rose he knocked down a book. He stooped to pick it up; as he straightened himself he saw Vashti’s hand upraised to strike the white moth.
“Oh, Vashti! don’t! don’t!” he cried, irrepressible pain in his voice; but the blow had fallen.
The moth fluttered about dazedly, trying to escape the shadow of the upraised hand; there was a powdery white mark on the green baize table-top where the first blow had fallen upon it, maiming it without killing it outright.
Sidney’s face grew pale as death.
“Oh, Vashti! Vashti!” he cried again. “Do not kill it, there is so much room in the world.”
He gathered the half-crushed creature, which would never fly again, into a tender hollowed palm, and, opening the shutter, put it forth to die in the darkness from whence it had been drawn by the glimmer of his lamp.
Alas! alas! how many wounded and maimed have been cast forth to die in the darkness from out which their aspirations had drawn them to receive their death wounds. Sidney came back to his table, a sick pain at his heart.
Presently Vashti put her arms about his head, and drawing it back upon her breast, placed her cool finger-tips upon his eyes.
He accepted the mute apology with swift responsive tenderness. And as she held him thus the woman’s weakness, latent even in her, forced itself to the surface for a moment.
“You suffer for every little thing,” she said. “I can only feel when my very soul is torn.”