His look, his tone, and, more than all, his allusion to the calamity of his house, reached her soul, and broke the spell of reserve by which she was bound.
"Oh, do not say that you are ruined!" she cried, in a voice thrilled and thrilling with profound emotion. "Do not think that you are ruined. You could never be ruined. Nothing could ruin you. It is not in the power of fate to ruin a man like you. And if you loved me when you first met my eyes it was because you read in them the soul that was created yours! And if these eyes have haunted you ever since it was because this soul has been always longing, yearning, aspiring towards yours!" And she dropped her face in her hands and wept for pure joy.
"Salome, Salome, can this be indeed true? Can I have been so blessed? Am I indeed so happy? Then is this abundant compensation for all that I have lost in this world! Heavenly consolation for all I have suffered on earth! Speak again, oh, my dearest! Tell me once more, for I can scarcely realize my happiness! Speak again, beloved, for your words are life to me!" he exclaimed, with profound emotion.
"Yes, I will tell you all!" she said, wiping away her joyful tears and looking up. "I will tell you everything for it is your right! You have made me so happy to-day! I loved you from the beginning. First, I loved the magnanimous, self-sacrificing man who, at the age of twenty-one years, with a brilliant future before him, could renounce all his prospects to give peace to his father's latter years. I loved you then, Lord Arondelle, before I knew what manner of man you looked!"
"How blessed, how surely blessed I am in hearing you," he breathed, in a low and reverent tone.
"Afterward I saw your portrait in Malcolm's Tower at Lone," she continued, in a soft voice. "And I saw a beauty and a grandeur in the face and form that seemed the fitting manifestation of a soul like yours. And I loved you more than ever. My mornings were passed in the tower near the glory of that picture. But I gazed on it so hopelessly! You were missing, you were lost to your world! And then I was so plain, so pale, and dark and gray-eyed. If I should ever be so fortunate as to meet you, I thought you would never be likely to love me!"
"My consolation! You are most lovely from your spirit, and now you know that I loved you from my first meeting with you," he breathed, in a low, earnest tone, pouring his whole soul's devotion through the gaze that he fixed on her face.
Again her eyes drooped as she murmured:
"If I am lovely in the very least, it must be that my love for you has made me so; for, even then, when I had only heard your story and seen your portrait, I loved you so, that I could not think of marriage with any other man."
"And that was the reason why you refused so many excellent offers?" he inquired, with a smile.