She paused for breath, her eyes fixed on his face, as if she were not seeing him, but the past, and her own self moving and being in that past.
"And then you went, and all the happiness, all the gladness, seemed to go, and—bend lower—I—I can only whisper it—the night you went I flung myself on the bed and—and cried."
"My Nell, my dearest!" was all he could say.
"I cried because it seemed to me that my life had come to an end; that never, so long as I should live, should I know one moment of happiness again. It was as if all the light had gone out of the sky, as if the sun had turned cold—ah! you don't know!"
"Do I not, dearest?"
"And then, when I saw you to-day, all the light and warmth came rushing back, and I knew that it was you who were my light, my sun, and that without you I was not living, but only a shadow and a mockery of life."
Her hands fell from his breast, her head sank upon his knees, she sobbed in the abandonment of her passion.
And the man was awed by it, and almost as white as herself. He gathered her in his strong arms and murmured passionate words of love and gratitude and devotion.
"Nell, Nell, my Nell! God make me more worthy of your love!" he said brokenly, hoarsely.
She raised her head from his knees and offered him—of her own free will—her sweet lips, and then clung to him with a half-tearful, maidenly shame.