Then my eyes would open wide.

No Rima in my arms! But over there, a little way back from the fire, just beyond where old Nuflo had sat brooding a few minutes ago, Rima would be standing, still and pale and unspeakably sad.

Why does she come to me from the outside darkness to stand there talking to me, yet never once lifting her mournful eyes to mine?
"Do not believe it, Abel; no, that was only a phantom of your brain, the What-I-was that you remember so well.

For do you not see that when I come she fades away and is nothing?
Not that--do not ask it.

I know that I once refused to look into your eyes, and afterwards, in the cave at Riolama, I looked long and was happy--unspeakably happy! But now--oh, you do not know what you ask; you do not know the sorrow that has come into mine; that if you once beheld it, for very sorrow you would die.