"I don't think anyone could, even then."
"But they can die of sorrow sometimes, I've heard. And then if one really wants to…."
"Hawthorn!" He clasped her in a wild embrace. "There is no one like you in all the world. If that were possible, I would ask nothing else."
"Would you—would you really care to … with me?"
"Yes, yes … to swoon in the scent of you and die … to feel the strands of your hair twined round my throat, and die…. Well for me if I could, perhaps—and for others…."
SISTER MAYA
Sadness pervaded his soul, and he spoke to the evening gloom that stole in through the window and hovered about his pale face like a watcher.
"I too should have had a sister—sister Maya," he said dreamily.
"You had one—and the best that one could wish for," said the evening gloom.
"I don't remember—I was too young to know…. But mother always spoke so nicely of her … the time I was ill, for instance."