What was it, then, this love of hers?  Was it mere earthly passion?  No, it was more.  It was something grander, purer, deeper, and quite undying.  Whence came it, then?  If she was, as she had thought, only a child of earth, whence came this deep desire which was not of the earth?  Had she been wrong, had she a soul—­something that could love with the body and through the body and beyond the body—­something of which the body with its yearnings was but the envelope, the hand or instrument?  Oh, now it seemed to Beatrice that this was so, and that called into being by her love she and her soul stood face to face acknowledging their unity.  Once she had held that it was phantasy:  that such spiritual hopes were but exhalations from a heart unsatisfied; that when love escapes us on the earth, in our despair, we swear it is immortal, and that we shall find it in the heavens.  Now Beatrice believed this no more.  Love had kissed her on the eyes, and at his kiss her sleeping spirit was awakened, and she saw a vision of the truth.

Yes, she loved him, and must always love him!  But she could never know on earth that he was hers, and if she had a spirit to be freed after some few years, would not his spirit have forgotten hers in that far hereafter of their meeting?

She dropped her brow upon her arm and softly sobbed.  What was there left for her to do except to sob—­till her heart broke?

Elizabeth, lying with wide-open ears, heard the sobs.  Elizabeth, peering through the moonlight, saw her sister’s form tremble in the convulsion of her sorrow, and smiled a smile of malice.

“The thing is done,” she thought; “she cries because the man is going.  Don’t cry, Beatrice, don’t cry!  We will get your plaything back for you.  Oh, with such a bait it will be easy.  He is as sweet on you as you on him.”

There was something evil, something almost devilish, in this scene of the one watching woman holding a clue to and enjoying the secret tortures of the other, plotting the while to turn them to her innocent rival’s destruction and her own advantage.  Elizabeth’s jealousy was indeed bitter as the grave.

Suddenly Beatrice ceased sobbing.  She lifted her head, and by a sudden impulse threw out the passion of her heart with all her concentrated strength of mind towards the man she loved, murmuring as she did so some passionate, despairing words which she knew.

At this moment Geoffrey, sleeping soundly, dreamed that he saw Beatrice seated by her window and looking at him with eyes which no earthly obstacle could blind.  She was speaking; her lips moved, but though he could hear no voice the words she spoke floated into his mind—­

     “Be a god and hold me
        With a charm! 
     Be a man and fold me
        With thine arm.

     Teach me, only teach, Love! 
        As I ought
     I will speak thy speech, Love,
        Think thy thought—­