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so completely, otherwise? Would he otherwise . . . she did not know what; but, as she recalled him since he returned from Switzerland, she felt, indeed she was certain that his whole being was permeated with love for her . . . a love that was strangely akin to regret, but still love . . . Was her love regret? No . . . Was her love hope? No, not hope either . . . Her love, hers, was only life, had hitherto been only life: the lives which another woman lives from her eighteenth year onwards she had as it were hastened to live now, late as it was. Oh, to live right on from those first young girlish dreams which had danced along radiant paths towards the high clouds above her . . . while all the time her incredulous little laugh had tempered their eager joy! . . . But now, since she had spoken to Van der Welcke, now, suddenly, since she had awakened from her sleep or her swoon after that breath of pure ether, that perfect sincerity, now she felt that her love was not only just existence, just life—the real existence, the real life—but that the most human emotions were suddenly passing through her soul; that she herself regretted what might have been; that she herself hoped—O Heaven!—for what might yet be. It was suddenly as though all her past had fallen from her and as though she saw a number of new paths winding towards new years, towards the wide fields of the future, nothing but the future. It was as though