Suddenly, Delafield turned to her with renewed emotion.
"I feel already the energy, the honorable ambition you will bring to it. But still, you'd have given it up, Julie? You'd have given it up?"
Julie chose her words.
"Yes. But now that we are to keep it, will you hate me if, some day--when we are less sad--I get pleasure from it? I sha'n't be able to help it. When we were at La Verna, I felt that you ought to have been born in the thirteenth century, that you were really meant to wed poverty and follow St. Francis. But now you have got to be horribly, hopelessly rich. And I, all the time, am a worldling, and a modern. What you'll suffer from, I shall perhaps--enjoy."
The word fell harshly on the darkened room. Delafield shivered, as though he felt the overshadowing dead. Julie impetuously took his hand.
"It will be my part to be a worldling--for your sake," she said, her breath wavering. Their eyes met. From her face shone a revelation, a beauty that enwrapped them both. Delafield fell on his knees beside her, and laid his head upon her breast. The exquisite gesture with which she folded her arms about him told her inmost thought. At last he needed her, and the dear knowledge filled and tamed her heart.
THE END