CHAPTER IX.
THE WONDERFUL WEEK.
As Antony and Silencieux became more and more to each other, poor Beatrice, though she had been the first occasion of their love, and little as she now demanded, seldom as Antony spoke to her, seldom as he smiled upon her, distant as were the lonely walks she took, infrequent as was her sad footfall in the little wood,--poor Beatrice, though indeed, so far from active intrusion upon their loves, and as if only by her breathing with them the heavy air of that green unwholesome valley, was becoming an irksome presence of the imagination.

They longed to be somewhere together where Beatrice had never been, where her sad face could not follow them; and one night Silencieux whispered to Antony:-- "Take me to the sea, Antony--to some lonely sea." "To-morrow I will take you," said Antony, "where the loneliest land meets the loneliest sea." On the morrow evening the High Muses had once more made Antony late for dinner.

One hour, and two hours, went by, and then Beatrice, in alarm, took the lantern and courageously braved the blackness of the wood.
The chalet was in darkness, and the door was locked, but through the uncurtained glass of the window, she was able to irradiate the emptiness of its interior.

Antony was not there.
But she noticed, with a shudder, that the space usually filled by the Image was vacant.

Then she understood, and with a hopeless sigh went down the wood again.
Already Antony and Silencieux had found the place where the loneliest land meets the loneliest sea.