But Silencieux made no sign.

Then Antony grew angry in his remorse: "I hate you, Silencieux. Never
will I look on your face again. You are an evil dream that has stolen
from me the truth of life. I have broken a true heart that loved me,
that would have died for me--for your sake; just to watch your loveless
beauty, to hear the cold music of your voice. You are like the moon that
turns men mad, a hollow shell of silver drawing all your light from the
sun of life, a silver shadow of the golden sun."

But prayer and reproach were alike in vain. Silencieux remained
unheeding, and Antony returned to watch by Beatrice's side, with a heart
that had now no hope, and a soul weighed down with the sense of
irrevocable sin. There lay the little life he had murdered, delivered up
to the Moloch of Art. No sorrow, no agonies, were now of any avail for
ever. Little Wonder would surely die, and all the old lost opportunities
of loving her could never return. He had loved the shadow. This was a
part of the price.

Day after day the cruel fever consumed Wonder as fire consumes a flower.
Her tiny face seemed too small for the visitation of such suffering as
burned and hammered behind the high white brow, and yellowed and drew
tight the skin upon the cheeks. She had so recently known the strange
pain of being born. Already, for so little of life, she was to endure
the pain of death.

Day after day, hour after hour, Antony hung over her bed, with a
devotion and an unconsciousness of fatigue that made Beatrice look at
him with astonishment, and sometimes even for a moment forget Wonder in
the joy with which she saw him transfigured by simple human love. Now,