“I killed Philip LaMotte, who was in the way of my will.”

Her eyes seemed to be drawing forward from their distant focus to my
mouth, as if what they had seen before within was now articulate there. “My will killed the man whom my eyes had never seen, whose name I did
not know, nor whose existence until you told me he was dead. My mind
knows that, now.”

I could not bear her hand, this dead thing in my own. I could not let
it go. “There was another obstacle to our perfect marriage. I was poor,
Mildred ... and my work was the sort men praise, the sort that
nourishes men, but that they do not pay for. I went to see my parents,
on that same fatal night when I was with you, and when my will was
slaying my one rival. I told my parents of you: I begged them to give
me money, so that I might ask you to become my wife. They refused. Mother, because she loved me selfishly and did not wish me to marry. Father because he loved only his ease. “... I slew my parents.”

Then I could let loose her hand. With her other hand she clasped the hand I had held. She felt it: she
shuddered. She let it drop to her side. “My will did away with my parents. I am their heir. I am rich.”

Again she clasped the hand which I had clasped. “There was a deeper reason for my deeds--a better reason. My will, in
these ruthless acts, proved itself equal to the power of your beauty:
equal to the power in you which had called forth my love. These were
sacrifices to you, Mildred: to the Goddess within you! Sacrifices to
prove your lover as terrible, as ineffable, as strong as was my love,
and as was the power in you that made me love you.”

Mildred arose. Her hands quavered up to her brow. “John ... are you mad!”

I smiled, and feared to smile lest the smile be horrible to her. Her
hands clasped her brow. Then suddenly she let them fall. Her face
hardened an instant, a glaze of resolution around its tender bloom. She
sat down. “John, can you explain what you have said?”

She seemed wholly woman. Could it be that my words diminished her? What
I had to say was unreal and strange, now she seemed wholly human. But I told her my story. And as I spoke, slowly, with care, I bled with
agony. For this was fire I was pouring all about the flower of my love. How would she emerge? Transfigured to be my mate, wedded by fire to
fire? Or ash? So I went on, and told my story....

“Whence does he come, this larval man whom my will summoned, whom
my will endowed with all the cunning of my learnéd brain, to slay,
perfectly, surely? Is he gone forever? In that moment at the limekiln,
when my intelligence had challenged my will’s deed and we stood locked
in conflict ... the larval creature of my will, and my self of the
light ... did I do him away? I think he is gone forever. He could live
only when my mind slept: and now it is awake. That is why he strove to
murder me. To drag me by the dark roots of us both into the boil of the
limekiln. And he failed. Had he not been desperate, surely he would
not have tried to kill his master by whose darkness he lived. My mind
won in that electric moment! My mind leaped with my body, to the other
side. He will lurk no more, murder no more. For my soul knows him.... But he has seared my soul.”

Her hands did not cease from moving while I spoke. Now, in my silence,
they moved. They clasped in anguish on her breast. They went to her
brow. They tremored at her side. They were like flowers tremulous in a
flame. She sat, swaying gently, like an agéd woman. I was silent. Her head turned, and she saw me. The glaze in her eyes
grew as what she knew was measured with her sight. Her body was rigid. Her pain was freezing her. She swayed no more. And her hands were
lifeless. I knelt before her. But I did not dare to touch her. I put forth my
hands, but they remained suspended. For I did not dare to touch her. “Mildred,” I said, “save me.”

She watched my hands, as if she wondered what these suppliant palms
were going to do. “There is power in me, Mildred. And power, if it is happy, is divine. Do you now know how I have needed you? Have I not won you? Save me!”

She watched my hands. They covered my face an instant. I stood up. And
I stood over her. “Mildred, I have been ruthless. Yes. More ruthless than my mind would
ever have conceived. Is that a weakness in me? I loved my parents. They
were the only human beings in my life. I was ruthless, because I was
in love with Beauty. I have used truth ... as it was revealed to me,
vastly beyond our miserable sphere ... I have used truth, because I was
in love with Beauty.”

Her face was blanched as if some fire had seared it. Her eyes were like
stones. Her beauty was a mask. I feared what I saw in her, for it was the worst of myself. “We must go on, now, Mildred. We dare not stop. You and I together
with truth at our command, to create Beauty. To make Beauty live....
Mildred, will you save me?”

Still she did not speak. She watched me from her place below me as I
stood. But she watched my eyes. And her eyes were limpid again, and
warm; their glaze had melted. “I have learned that Truth is cold. It is a cold that burns: terribly
and relentless. Truth cares not for man, and man in love with it is
like a moth who would possess the sun. Oh, have I learned too late! Man
cannot live with Truth. And yet he loves it. So by a miracle, he turns
it into Beauty. And he dwells with Beauty. Save me! Save me!”

Her face broke, and her hands covered it. She wept. “My love, my love,” I said, “do you not understand? I want to be a man. And I have glimpsed the terrible face of truth. That is the curse of my
will. Love, I want to be a man again ... to live ... to live in your
love ... to live in Beauty. Save me!”

She wept silently. Little waves of anguish welled with her breast, rose
to her neck and her arms. She wept long. I knelt beside her. She knew me there. I did not touch
her, but she knew me there. Would her weeping cease, and would her
hands come to mine? She lifted her head. She did not look at me. She rose. I, kneeling,
waited. Then, her eyes came down. I knew that I had lost her. I understood the pang across my eyes when first she came into the room:
I knew that I had known that she was lost. She stood there before me kneeling: her skirt touched my face. She was
turned toward the door, and her eyes were upon me. They were far away. I drank her beauty like an immortal wine within a cup of death. ... O sweet beyond song is woman at her Spring! You are life, you are
the wrung essence of all life. For you I have made myself an ashen path
through the splendor of gardens. For you I have denied my soul all
their flung radiance. That I might drink you perfectly. And I am all
athirst. My ashen way has dried my mouth, and opened my desire. I am
all thirst for you. And I have lost you? --Mildred, will you see this longing in my mouth, and go? --Mildred, will you see this death in my eyes, and go?... --You have gone already. And I am alone.