“It is very sad—­Poor little Beatrice—­but how beautiful!  It must be wonderful to die like that.”

And then again he said:  “She is strangely like Silencieux.”

Then he walked up the wood, in a great serenity of mind.  He had lost Wonder, but she lived again in his songs.  He had lost Beatrice, but he had her image—­did she not live for ever in Silencieux?

So he went up the wood, whistling softly to himself—­but lo! when he opened his chalet door, there was a strange light in the room.  The eyes of Silencieux were wide open, and from her lips hung a dark moth with the face of death between his wings.

THE END