For that one link had still been between them. Somewhere, near
or far, during all these years, she, too, had trodden the earth with
her light footsteps, the same universal mother earth on which they both
moved and lived. The very world was hers, since she was touching it,
and to touch it in his turn was to feel her presence. For who could
tell what hidden currents ran in the secret depths, or what mysterious
interchange of sympathy might not be maintained through them? The air
itself was hers, since she was somewhere breathing it; the stars, for
she looked on them; the sun, for it warmed her; the cold of winter,
for it chilled her too; the breezes of spring, for they fanned her pale
cheek and cooled her dark brow. All had been hers, and at the thought
that she had passed away, a cry of universal mourning broke from the
world she had left behind, and darkness descended upon all things, as a
funeral pall.
Cold and dim and sad the ancient city had seemed before, but it was a
thousandfold more melancholy now, more black, more saturated with the
gloom of ages. From time to time the Wanderer raised his heavy lids,
scarcely seeing what was before him, conscious of nothing but the horror
which had so suddenly embraced his whole existence. Then, all at once,
he was face to face with some one. A woman stood still in the way, a
woman wrapped in rich furs, her features covered by a dark veil which
could not hide the unequal fire of the unlike eyes so keenly fixed on
his.
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