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306 Where he had left her, she stood silent, the moonlight falling on the white marble about her, till from the sea the lustre on her looked bright as day. In one thing alone had he wronged her. She knew the weariness of remorse, she knew the tenderness of pity.

Though no sign had escaped her, each word of his accusation had quivered to her heart; he did not feel its truth more bitterly than she. That upbraiding, poured out in the solitude of the night, had stirred her heart with its condemnation; it showed her what it was that she had done, it made her shudder from the fatal gift of her own dominion; how had she used it? Again and again, till they had passed by her, no more noted than the winds that swept the air about her, the anguish of men's lives, the fire of their passions had been spent upon her, and been wasted for her; she had won love without scruple, embittered it without self-reproach. But now, her own heart for once was stirred.

"What do I do?" she asked herself. "Ruin their lives, destroy their peace, send them out to their deaths—and for what? A phantom, a falsehood, an unreality, that betrays them as utterly as I! The life I lead is but cruelty on cruelty, sin on