"I then felt within myself the impulse to throw forth a minstrelsy prophetic of a new world resembling that old which had vanished. It was not to be a mere chant of wrath or exultation—it was to sound the joy of the earth, of the air, of the sun, of the moon and the stars,—the song of the birds, the perfume of the flowers—"
"Words that have but little meaning left in this stern world wherein we dwell—"
"They had meaning for me, father. Also for her. They were to both of us a bright and mystical ideal, in the fumes of which we steeped our souls,—our very selves, till our natures seemed to know no hurt, seemed incapable of evil—"
"Alas—the greater the pity!"
"I was sure of myself. She was sure of me. I loved her. Her presence was to me as some intoxication of the soul—some rare perfume that captivates the senses, raising the spirit to heights too rarefied for breath—"
"And you fell?"
The words came from the monk's lips, slowly, inexorably, as the knell of fate.
"I—all, but fell!" stammered Tristan. "One day in a chamber far removed from the inhabited part of the castle we sat and read. And suddenly she laid her face close to mine and with eyes in whose mystic depths lurked something more than I had ever seen in them before asked why, through Fate's high necessity, two should forever wander side by side, longing for each other—their longing unsatisfied—when the hour was theirs—"
Again Tristan paused.
The monk regarded him in silence.