But the Avon Swan sang silvery clear, “All office infirmity still
Neglects,” and his heart waxed weak and wailed, “Perhaps she is fevered and ill,—
Perhaps she is dying—O God, protect Thy purest, Thy peerless Saville!”
Yet the foul faint doubt he had trampled at first sprang weedlike over again,—
She was but a woman and therefore false,—she smiled on a hundred men,—
And he thought how she clung to his arm in the snow and he wished he had killed her then!
