"Rather say, my task."
"Well, your ambition!"
"Say, my glory."
"Oh, heaven!" and her heart was laboring; her closed lids allowed tears to struggle out.
"What is it you see?" inquired Balsamo, astounded at the lucidity which frightened even him.
"I see phantoms gliding about among the shadows. Some hold in their own hands their severed crowned heads, like St. Denis in that Abbey; and you stand in the heart of the battle like a general in command. You seem to rule, and you are obeyed."
"Does that not make you proud of me?" inquired the other joyfully.
"You are good enough not to care to be great. Besides, in looking for myself in this scene, I see nothing of me. Oh, I shall not be there," she sighed. "I shall be in the grave."
"You dead, my dearest Lorenza!" said Balsamo, frowning. "No, we shall live and love together."
"No, you love me no more, or not enough," crowding upon his forehead, held between her hands, a multitude of glowing kisses. "I have to reproach you for your coldness. Look now how you draw away from me as though you fled my fondlings. Oh, restore to me my maiden quietude, in my nunnery of Subiaco—when the night was so calm in my cell. Return me those kisses which you sent on the wings of the wind coming to me in my solitude like golden-pinioned sylph, which melted on me in delight. Do not retreat from me. Give me your hand, that I may press it; let me kiss your dear eyes—let me be your wife, in short."