Besides, now that he looked forward from the verge of mortal destiny, the
path before him seemed so very lonely. Might he not seek some one own
friend--one single heart--before he took the final step? There was Sibyl
Dacy! Oh, what bliss, if that pale girl might set out with him on his
journey! how sweet, how sweet, to wander with her through the places else
so desolate! for he could but half see, half know things, without her to
help him. And perhaps it might be so. She must already know, or strongly
suspect, that he was engaged in some deep, mysterious research; it might
be that, with her sources of mysterious knowledge among her legendary
lore, she knew of this. Then, oh, to think of those dreams which lovers
have always had, when their new love makes the old earth seem so happy and
glorious a place, that not a thousand nor an endless succession of years
can exhaust it,--all those realized for him and her! If this could not be,
what should he do? Would he venture onward into such a wintry futurity,
symbolized, perhaps, by the coldness of the crystal goblet? He shivered at
the thought.

Now, what had passed between Septimius and Sibyl Dacy is not upon record,
only that one day they were walking together on the hill-top, or sitting
by the little hillock, and talking earnestly together. Sibyl's face was a
little flushed with some excitement, and really she looked very beautiful;
and Septimius's dark face, too, had a solemn triumph in it that made him
also beautiful; so rapt he was after all those watchings, and emaciations,
and the pure, unworldly, self-denying life that he had spent. They talked
as if there were some foregone conclusion on which they based what they
said.

"Will you not be weary in the time that we shall spend together?" asked
he.