It was something grander, purer, deeper, and quite undying.
Whence came it, then?
If she was, as she had thought, only a child of earth, whence came this deep desire which was not of the earth?
Had she been wrong, had she a soul--something that could love with the body and through the body and beyond the body--something of which the body with its yearnings was but the envelope, the hand or instrument?
Oh, now it seemed to Beatrice that this was so, and that called into being by her love she and her soul stood face to face acknowledging their unity.

Once she had held that it was phantasy: that such spiritual hopes were but exhalations from a heart unsatisfied; that when love escapes us on the earth, in our despair, we swear it is immortal, and that we shall find it in the heavens.

Now Beatrice believed this no more.

Love had kissed her on the eyes, and at his kiss her sleeping spirit was awakened, and she saw a vision of the truth.
Yes, she loved him, and must always love him! But she could never know on earth that he was hers, and if she had a spirit to be freed after some few years, would not his spirit have forgotten hers in that far hereafter of their meeting?
She dropped her brow upon her arm and softly sobbed.

What was there left for her to do except to sob--till her heart broke?
Elizabeth, lying with wide-open ears, heard the sobs.