"I have raised my eyes, looked at the sun, and it has dazzled me," he said. "Ah, lady, I have had such dreams, of love that overleaped all barriers, as Art has rendered loveliness immortal for all time. I have dreamed of loves such as Petrarch had for Laura, Dante for Beatrice, and I wake to call myself mad for indulging in such dreams."
She was deeply interested. This was exactly as heros spoke in novels; they always had a lofty contempt for money, and talked as though love was the only and universal good. She looked half shyly at him; he was very handsome, this young artist who loved her so, and very sad. How dearly he loved her, and how strange it was! In all this wide world there was not one who cared for her as he did; the thought seemed to bring her nearer to him. No one had ever talked of loving her before. Perhaps the beauty of the May evening softened her and inclined her heart to him; for after a few minutes' silence she said to him:
"We are forgetting the very object for which I consented to see you."
CHAPTER VI.
"It is no wonder," replied Allan Lyster. "I forget everything in speaking to you. You do well, lady, in making me remember myself."
"Do not mistake me," she said gently. "I only thought time is flying, and I have not said yet what I promised your sister I would say."
They had walked down the orchard, and they stood now under the spreading boughs of a large apple tree—the pink and white blossoms made the loveliest frame for that most fair face. She was lovely as the blossoms themselves.
"I feel like a criminal," said Allan Lyster; "and as though you were my judge. I tremble to know what you have to say."
"Yet it is not very terrible, Mr. Lyster. Your sister is my dearest friend, and she tells me that you are thinking of going abroad. She is very miserable over it. She fancies she should never see you again. I promised her that I would persuade you to stay."