He did not seem to understand her words.
"That song has haunted me," he said, "ever since I heard it. I must say the last verse; it must have been of this very mill-wheel it was written.
"'But while I hear the mill-wheel
My pains will never cease;
I would the grave could hide me,
For there alone is peace.'"
"Is it a love story?" she asked, pleased at the pathos and rhythm of the words.
"Yes; it is the usual story—the whole love of a man's heart given to one not worthy of it, the vows forgotten, the ring broken. Then he cries out for the grave to hide himself and his unhappy love."
She looked up at him with dark, lustrous, gleaming eyes.
"Does all love end in sorrow?" she asked, simply.
He looked musingly at the moonlit waters, musingly at the starlit sky.
"I cannot tell," he replied, "but it seems to me that it ends more in sorrow than in joy. I should say," he continued, "that when truth meets truth, where loyalty meets loyalty, the ending is good; but where a true heart finds a false one, where loyalty and honor meet lightness and falsehood, then the end must be bad."
Leone seemed suddenly to remember that she was talking to a stranger, and, of all subjects, they had fallen on love.