You tell me that I sinned against
her--"
"I don't," said Senhouse. "I tell you that you sinned against love. You
don't know what love is."
"You say so. Maybe you know nothing about it. If you have reduced yourself
to be contented with the soul of a woman, I have not. What have I to do
with the soul?"
"Evidently nothing," said Senhouse. "How, pray, do you undertake to
apprehend body's beauty unless you discern the soul in it--on which it
shapes its beauty?"
"I know," the other replied, "that she has a lovely body, and gracious,
free-moving ways; and I could have inferred her soul from them. I'll
engage that you did the same thing. How are you to judge of the soul but
by the hints which the body affords you?"
Senhouse made no answer, but remained musing. When he spoke it was as if
he was resuming a tale half-told....
"She was in white--white as a cloud--and in a wood. Her hair reflected
gold of the sun. She pinned her skirts about her waist, and put her bare
foot into a pool of black water. She sank in it to the knee. She did not
falter: her eyes were steady upon what she did."
The stranger took him up where he stopped, and continued the tale. "She
could never falter in her purpose.
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