from me my fairest and my last-born blossom and threw it from her lattice into his.
Then, as he caught it, she closed the lattice with a swift, trembling hand, and fled to the little sleeping-closet where her crucifix and her mother's rosary hung together above her bed.
As for me, I was left bereaved and bleeding. The dew which waters the growth of your human love is usually the tears or blood of some martyred life.
I was sacrificed for Lili.
I prayed, as my torn stem quivered, and my fairest begotten sank to her death in the night and in the silence, that I might be the first and the last to suffer from the human love born that night.
I, a rose—Love's flower.
III.
Now before that summer was gone, these two were betrothed to one another, and my little, fair, dead daughter, the Rosebud, all faded and scentless though her half-opened leaves were, remained always on René's heart as a tender and treasured relic.
They were betrothed, I say,—not wedded, for they were so terribly poor.
Many a day he, I think, had not so much as a
