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STRAIT IS THE GATE 158

"Holiness ..." so low that I divined rather than heard the word. My whole happiness spread its wings and flew away out of my heart and up to Heaven. "I cannot reach it without you,” I said, and with my head on her knees, weeping like a child — but for love, not for grief - I repeated again and again: " Not without you; not without you!"


Then that day, too, passed by like the others. But in the evening Alissa came down without the little amethyst ornament. Faithful to my promise, the next morning at daybreak I left.


On the following day I received the strange letter which I give below, with these lines of Shakespeare's as motto:


“ “That strain again, — it had a dying fall: Oh, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south, That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odour. - Enough; no more, 'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.'


"Yes! In spite of myself, I looked for you the whole morning, my brother. I could not believe that you had gone. I felt resentful against you for having kept to our engagement. I thought it

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