"Nothing will ever comfort me." "I accept my own misery," continued Miriam, "my own guilt, if guilt it be; and, whether guilt or misery, I shall know how to deal with it.

But you, dearest friend, that were the rarest creature in all this world, and seemed a being to whom sorrow could not cling,--you, whom I half fancied to belong to a race that had vanished forever, you only surviving, to show mankind how genial and how joyous life used to be, in some long-gone age,--what had you to do with grief or crime ?" "They came to me as to other men," said Donatello broodingly.

"Doubtless I was born to them." "No, no; they came with me," replied Miriam.

"Mine is the responsibility! Alas! wherefore was I born?
Why did we ever meet?
Why did I not drive you from me, knowing for my heart foreboded it--that the cloud in which I walked would likewise envelop you!" Donatello stirred uneasily, with the irritable impatience that is often combined With a mood of leaden despondency.

A brown lizard with two tails--a monster often engendered by the Roman sunshine--ran across his foot, and made him start.