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264 my brother, which must have unfrank heralds to go before. Oh, Pierre, dear, dear Pierre; be very careful with me! This strange, mysterious, unexampled love between us, makes me all plastic in thy hand. Be very careful with me. I know little out of me. The world seems all one unknown India to me. Look up, look on me, Pierre; say now, thou wilt be very careful; say so, say so, Pierre!'

'If the most exquisite, and fragile filagree of Genoa be carefully handled by its artisan; if sacred nature carefully folds, and warms, and by inconceivable attentivenesses eggs round and round her minute and marvellous embryoes; then, Isabel, do I most carefully and most tenderly egg thee, gentlest one, and the fate of thee! Short of the great God, Isabel, there lives none who will be more careful with thee, more infinitely considerate and delicate with thee.'

'From my deepest heart, do I believe thee, Pierre. Yet thou mayest be very delicate in some point, where delicateness is not all essential, and in some quick impulsive hour, omit thy fullest needfulness somewhere where heedlessness were most fatal. Nay, nay, my brother; bleach these locks snow-white, thou sun! if I have any thought to reproach thee, Pierre, or betray distrust of thee. But earnestness must sometimes seem suspicious, else it is none. Pierre, Pierre, all thy aspect speaks eloquently of some already executed resolution, born in suddenness. Since I last saw thee, Pierre, some deed irrevocable has been done by thee. My soul is stiff and starched to it; now tell me what it is?'

'Thou, and I, and Delly Ulver, to-morrow morning depart this whole neighbourhood, and go to the distant city.—That is it.'

'No more?'

'Is it not enough?'