from the lips now closed forever.

Phaon was standing by the other pillar, his eyes covered with his right
hand.

Never before or since had she seen him look so sad, and it cut her to the
heart when she noticed that he trembled as if a chill had seized him,
and, drawing a long breath, pushed back the hair, which like a coalblack
curtain, covered half his forehead. She had wept bitterly, but he shed
no tears. Only a few poor words were exchanged between them in that
hour, but each one still echoed in her ears to-day, as if hours instead
of years intervened between that time and now.

"Mine was so good," Xanthe had sobbed; but he only nodded, and, after
fifteen minutes had passed, said nothing but, "And mine too."

In spite of the long pause that separated the girl's words from the
boy's, they were tenderly united, bound together by the thought, dwelling
uninterruptedly in both childish hearts, "My mother was so good."

It was again Xanthe who, after some time, had broken the silence by
asking "Whom have I now?"

Again it was long ere Phaon, for his only answer, could repeat softly:

"Yes, whom?"

They were trivial words, but they expressed the deep wretchedness which
only a child's heart can feel.