to expect of a poor devil like me, a poor common son of Adam, after all, and never any sublime self-immolator, as two or three of them were.  And hours I lay there with brows convulsed in an agony, groaning only those words:  ‘To kill her! to kill her!’ thinking sometimes that I should be merciful to myself too, and die, and let her live, and not care, since, after my death, I would not see her suffer, for the dead know not anything:  and to expect me to kill her with my own hand was a little too much.  Yet that one or other of us must die was perfectly certain, for I knew that I was just on the brink of failing in my oath, and matters here had reached an obvious crisis:  unless we could make up our minds to part...? putting the width of the earth between us?  That conception occurred to me:  and in the turmoil of my thoughts it seemed a possibility.  Finally, about 5 P.M., I resolved upon something:  and first I leapt up, went down and across the house into the arsenal, chose a small revolver, fitted it with cartridge, took it up-stairs, lubricated it with lamp-oil, went down and out across the drawbridge, walked two miles beyond the village, shot the revolver at a tree, found its action accurate, and started back.  When I came to the Castle, I walked along the island to the outer end, and looked up:  there were her pretty cream Valenciennes, put up by herself, waving inward before the light lake-breeze at one open oriel; and I knew that she was in the Castle, for I felt it:  and always, always, when she was within, I knew, for I felt her with me; and always when she was away, I knew, I felt, for the air had a dreadful drought, and a barrenness, in it.  And I looked up for a time to see if she would come to the window, and then I called, and she appeared.  And I said to her:  ‘Come down here.’

* * * * *

Just here there is a little rock-path to the south, going down to the water between rocks mixed with shrub-like little trees, three yards long:  a path, or a lane, one might call it, for at the lower end the rocks and trees reach well over a tall man’s head.  There she had tied my boat to a slender linden-trunk:  and sadder now than Gethsemane that familiar boat seemed to my eyes, for I knew very well that I should never enter it more.  I walked up and down the path, awaiting her:  and from the jacket-pocket in which lay the revolver I drew a box of Swedish matches, from it took two matches, and broke off a bit from the plain end of one; and the two I held between my left thumb and forefinger joint, the phosphorus ends level and visible, the other ends invisible:  and I awaited her, pacing fast, and my brow was as stern as Azrael and Rhadamanthus.

She came, very pale, poor thing, and flurried, breathing fast.  And ‘Leda,’ I said, meeting her in the middle of the lane, and going straight to the point, ’we are to part, as you guess—­for ever, as you guess—­for I see very well by your face that you guess.  I, too, am very sorry, my little child, and heavy is my heart.  To leave you ... alone ... in the world ... is—­death for me.  But it must, ah it must, be done.’