your eyes."

"Poor Beatrice!" said Antony. "It is little indeed I give her. Could you
not spare her so little, Silencieux?"

"I can spare her nothing. You must be all mine, Antony--your every
thought and hope and dream. So long as there is another woman in the
world for you except me, I cannot be yours in the depths of my being,
nor you mine. There must always be something withheld. It will never be
perfect, until--"

"Until when?"

"Until, Antony,"--and Silencieux lowered her voice to an awful
whisper,--"until you have made for me the human sacrifice."

"The human sacrifice!"

"Yes, Antony,--all my lovers have done that for me. They were not really
mine till then. Some have brought me many such offerings. Antony, when
will you bring me the human sacrifice?"

"O Silencieux!"

Antony's heart chilled with terror at Silencieux's words. It was against
this that the voices had warned him as he came up the wood. O that he
had never seen Silencieux more, never heard her poisonous voice again!

As one fleeing before the shadow of uncommitted sin that gains upon him
at each stride, Antony fled from the place, and sought the moors. The