"My gods?—No. They are the gods of youth and of age—not of manhood."
"What is yours, then?"
"Mine?—a Moloch who consumes my offspring, yet in whose burning brazen hands I have put them and myself—forever."
She looked at him in awe and in reverence. She imagined him the priest of some dark and terrible religion, for whose sake he passed his years in solitude and deprivation, and by whose powers he created the wondrous shapes that rose and bloomed around him.
"Those are gentler gods?" she said, timidly, raising her eyes to the brethren above her. "Do you never—will you never—worship them?"
"I have ceased to worship them. In time—when the world has utterly beaten me—no doubt I shall pray to one at least of them. To that one, see, the eldest of the brethren, who holds his torch turned downward."
"And that god is——"
"Death!"
She was silent.
Was this god not her god also? Had she not chosen him from all the rest and cast her life down at his feet for this man's sake?