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ARIADNE. 173that are vile canbe faithless. Itis nothing whatone is asked;it is what one is, what one wills,thatmatters."Iremember how in the early days she hadscorned Ariadne, saying that Ariadne shouldhave died ere Dionysos scaled the rock.— Fidelity in her was purification nay, wasinnocence that needed no purification; and notalone innocence,but supreme duty and joy thatdefied aU cruelty of man to bruise it much, orutterly to destroy it.She knew not enough of human nature andhuman ways and the evU thereof, to understandall that faithless womenwere;but the instinctin her recoUed from them not less with scomthan horror. Faith to Hilarion was inher naturewhat faith in heaven was to the martyrs, whosebones lie here in the eternal night of subterraneanRome. It was a religion, an instinct,and a paradise— a paradise whence not even thesilence and the abandonment of the god by whomshe was forsaken could drive her out wholly intodarkness.For in a great love there is a seU-sustaining