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--- the_altar_of_the_dead [2018/08/11 16:36] – francesco
+++ the_altar_of_the_dead [2018/08/11 20:35] (current) – francesco
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 VIII. He had ruthlessly abandoned her—that, of course, was what he had done.
-IX.
+IX. And yet this was no solution, especially after he had talked again to his friend of all it had been his plan that she should finally do for him.
+[...]
+"Then you //could// come? God sent you!" he murmured with a
+happy smile.\\
+"You're very ill–you shouldn't be here," she urged in anxious
+reply.\\
+"God sent me too, I think. I was ill when I came, but the
+sight of you does wonders." He held her hands, and they
+steadied and quickened him. "I've something to tell you."\\
+"Don't tell me!" she tenderly pleaded; "let me tell you.
+This afternoon, by a miracle, the sweetest of miracles, the
+sense of our difference left me. I was out–I was near,
+thinking, wandering alone, when, on the spot, something
+changed in my heart. It's my confession–there it is. To come
+back, to come back on the instant–the idea gave my wings. It
+was as if I suddenly saw something–as if it all became
+possible. I could come for what you yourself came for: that
+was enough. So here I am. It's not for my own–that's over.
+But I'm here for //them//." And breathless, infinitely
+relieved by her low, precipitate explanation, she looked
+with eyes that reflected all its splendour at the
+magnificence of their altar.\\
+"They're here for you," Stransom said, "they're present
+tonight as they've never been. They speak for you–don't you
+see?–in a passion of light–they sing out like a choir of
+angels. Don't you hear what they say?–they offer the very
+thing you asked of me."\\
+"Don't talk of it–don't think of it; forget it!" She spoke
+in hushed supplication, and while the apprehension deepened
+in her eyes she disengaged one of her hands and passed an
+arm round him, to support him better, to help him to sink
+into a seat.\\
+He let himself go, resting on her; he dropped upon the
+bench, and she fell on her knees beside him with his arm on
+her soulder. So he remained an instant, staring up at his
+shrine. "They say there's a gap in the array–they say it's
+not full, complete. Just one more," he went on,
+softly–"isn't that what you wanted? Yes, one more, one
+more."\\
+"Ah, no more–no more!" she wailed, as if with a quick, new
+horror of it, under her breath.\\
+"Yes, one more," he repeated, simply; "just one!" And with
+this his head dropped on her shoulder; she felt that in his
+weakness he had fainted. But alone with him in the dusky
+church a great dread was on her of what might still happen,
+for his face had the whiteness of death.