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Hichens, Robert Smythe, 1864-1950

"A Spirit in Prison"

No, it was the Pastorale, that
antique, simple, holy tune, that for her must always be connected with
the thought of love, man's love for woman, and the Bambino's love for
all the creatures of God. It flooded her heart, and beneath it sank
down, like a drowning thing, for a moment the frightful bitterness
that was alive in her heart to-night.
"Delarey loved you," Artois repeated. "He loved you on the first day
in Sicily, and he loved you on the last."
"And--and the days between?"
Her voice spoke falteringly. In her voice there was a sound of
pleading that struck into the very depths of his heart. The real
Hermione was in that sound, the loving woman who needed love, who
deserved a love as deep as that which she had given, as that which she
surely still had to give.
"He loved you always, but he loved you in his way."
"In his way!" she repeated, with a sort of infinite, hopeless sadness.
"Yes, Hermione, in his way. Oh, we all have our ways, all our
different ways of loving.


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