"You are my wife, if you love me."
In the shock of her surprise she was helpless to resist him longer; and he held her tightly, passionately, his lips on her hair, as her face lay pressed against his heart. She could hear it beating, feel it throb under her cheek. His wife? How was it possible?
But he said the words again, "My darling—my wife!"
"You love me well enough—for that?" she breathed. Sylvia had not dared to dream of such a triumph as this. "But the law of your 168 country? Oh, surely you have forgotten! We can only love each other, and say good-bye." She was ready to try him yet a little further.
"We will love each other, but by heaven, we shall not say good-bye—not after this hour. I could not lose you. As for the law, there is nothing in it which prevents my being your husband, you my wife."
"It is strange." Sylvia's breath came quickly. "I have thought—I have always believed—that the Empress of Rhaetia must be of Royal blood. I——"
"Ah, my darling, the Empress of Rhaetia I cannot make you. If you love me as well—only half as well as I love you, you will be satisfied with the empire of my heart."
Suddenly the warm, throbbing blood in Sylvia's veins grew chill. It was as if a wind had blown up from the dark depths of the lake, to strike with an icy chill upon her soul. A moment more and she would have told him the whole truth, worshipping him because he had been ready to break through all the traditions of his country for her sake. 169 But now her passionate impulse of gratitude was frozen by that biting blast. If only it came from clouds of misunderstanding—if only the clouds would part, and give her back the full glory of a vanishing joy!
"The empire of your heart!" she echoed. "I should be richer than with all the treasures of the world, if that were mine. If you were the chamois-hunter I met on the mountain, I would love you as I love you now, and I would go with you to the ends of the earth, as your wife. But you are not the chamois-hunter; you are an emperor. Had you told me only of a hopeless love, having nothing else to offer save that, and a promise not to forget, since your high destiny must stand between us, I could still have been happy. Yet you say more than that. You say something I cannot understand. What an emperor offers a woman he honours, must be all or—nothing."
"I do offer you all," said Maximilian. "All myself, my life, the very soul of me—all that is my own to give. The rest belongs to Rhaetia."