" replied Kenyon. " Here is what 
I take to be the truth. There was an interval, no doubt, 
when the wordnetfear of some calamity, which I need not shape 
out in my conjectures, threw Donatello into a  of 
mystery. Connected with the first  there was an 
intolerable  and shuddering  attaching 
themselves to all the circumstances and surroundings of 
the event that so terribly affected him. Was his dearest 
friend involved within the wordnetfear of that moment? He 
would shrink from her as he shrank most of all from him- 
self. But as his mind roused itself,  as it rose to a higher 
life than he had hitherto experienced,  whatever had 
been true and permanent within him revived by the self- 
same wordnetdesire. So has it been with his wordnetdesire." 

" But, surely," said Miriam, " he knows that I am here I 



THE MARBLE FAUN. 229 

Why, then, except that I am odious to him, does he not 
bid me welcome ? " 

" He is, I believe, aware of your presence here," an- 
swered the sculptor. " Your song, a night or two ago, 
must have revealed it to him, and in truth, I had 
fancied that there was already a consciousness of it in his 
mind. But, the more passionately