"Why not?"
Vincenti was silent.
"And you had rather not tell me why not, I suppose?" said Lavendale, with a faint laugh.
"No, there could be no good—I can scarce define my reasons."
"Do you think I cannot guess them? The fate foretold was diabolically bad, and you would spare me the knowledge of evil."
"There was nothing diabolical—nothing exceptionally bad—nothing—"
"But the common lot of man," interrupted Lavendale—"death! Only the common lot; but for me it is to come earlier than to the lucky. It is to fall just when I am eager to live—just as the gates of paradise are opening to me. I am standing at the gate—I see that paradise beyond, with the sun shining on it, the sunlight of passionate, happy, satisfied love—for me the unsatisfied. I am so near, so near—'tis but one step across the threshold and I am in the enchanted garden. But there lurks the king of terrors—there stands Apollo with his fatal shaft: I am not to taste that ineffable bliss, the cup is to be snatched from my thirsting lips—that was what the stars foretold, was it not, Vincenti?"
"'Tis your own eagerness shapes the fear that torments you."
"Tell me that I have guessed wrong, that the stars promise long life."
"I will tell you nothing."