To dream
That Love could buid them closer well had made
The hoar hair of the Baronet bristle up
With liorror, worse tlian had he heard his priest
Preach an inverted scripture, sons of men
Daughters of God."



LATER IDYLLS 249



But the love came, nevertheless, in brother and sister
guise, at first —

"But where a passion yet unborn, perhaps
Lay hidden as the music of the moon
Sleeps in the plain eggs of the nightingale."

At last it comes to be known — to themselves, and then
to Sir Aylmer. He, with the coarseness proper to him,
demands of Leolin —

" ' And you shall say that having spoken with me,
And after looted into yourself, you find
That you meant nothing. ' "

To which Leolin replies —

'"I
So foul a traitor to myself and her,
Never, oh, never.' "

So they are parted, but true in heart for ever. For a
time letters help them, but these are discovered by
treachery, and stopped, she not understanding how.
" So that the gentle creature, shut from all
Her charitable use, and face to face
With tTrentj- months of silence, slowly lost,
Nor greatly cared to lose, her hold on life.
Last, some low fever, ranging round to spy
The weakness of a people or a house.
Like flies that haunt a wound, or deer, or men,
Or almost all that is, hurting the hurt —
Save Christ as we believe him — found the girl.
