"You shall have it—a parting gift—"
He seized her hands. They lay passively within his own.
There was a great fear in his eyes.
"I do not understand—"
She loosened the roses from her hair and garb before she made reply. Silently, like dead leaves in autumn, the fragrant petals dropped one by one to earth. Hellayne watched them with weary eyes as they drifted to their sleep, then, as she held the last spray in her hand, gazing upon it she said:
"When you gave them to me, Tristan, they were sweet and fresh, the fairest you could find. Now they have faded, perished, died—"
He started to plead, to protest, to silence her, but she continued:
"Ah! Can you not see? Can you not understand? Perchance," she added bitterly, "I was created to adorn the fleeting June afternoon of your life, and when this scarf is torn and faded as these flowers, let the wind carry it away,—like these dead petals at our feet—"
She let fall the withered spray, but he snatched it ere it touched the ground.
"I love you," he stammered passionately. "I love you! Love you as no woman was ever loved. You are my world—my fate— Hellayne! Hellayne! Know you what you say?"—