had been like a breath from an oasis to 
one perishing in the desert. But chiefly had her kindness, 
delicacy, and generosity, when in his moral and physical 
 he had been completely at her , won his 
deepest . Also he felt that in all his after life 
he could never even think of her touch upon his aching 
temples without an answering wordnetfear of his whole nature that 
appeared to have an innate  with hers. 

And yet the exasperating mystery of it all! While she 
was becoming the one source of life and  for him, while 
his very  cried out for her friendship and sisterly re 
gard (as he would then have said), she seemed, in her pre 
occupation, unconscious of his existence, and he instinc 
tively felt that she would bid him "good- by" on the follow 
ing day, perhaps, with a sense of , and the current of 
her life flow on as smoothly and brightly as if he had never 
caused a passing . 

With gnawing  he inwardly cursed his evil life 
and unworthy character, for these he believed formed the 
hopeless gulf that separated them. 

"It is the same," he said, in his exaggerating way, "as 
if a puddle should mirror the star just above it, and, becom 
ing enamored, should wordnetdesire it to fall and