"Is it true, then, that you do not love me?"
Dolores made no answer. Emboldened by the solemn calmness of these moments which were, as they supposed, ushering them into eternity, Philip continued:
"Whenever I pressed my suit, you pleaded my father's wishes as an excuse for not listening to my prayers. To gratify a foolish ambition he desired me to marry Antoinette. Ah, well! my father's will no longer stands between us; and the engagement that binds me to her is broken by the changed situation in which we find ourselves. We are free now in the shadow of death. Will you not tell me the truth? Will you not open your heart to me as I have opened mine to you?"
Dolores listened, her glowing eyes riveted upon Philip's face, her bosom heaving with emotion. The words; "We are free now in the shadow of death," rang in her ears. She felt that she could not refuse her lover the last joy and consolation that he claimed; and that she, whose past had been one long sacrifice of her happiness and of her hopes, had a right to reveal the secret so long buried in her soul. Gently, almost solemnly, these words fell from her lips:
"Listen, Philip, since you ask me for the truth, now, at this supreme hour, I have always loved you as I love you now; and I love you now as ardently as I am beloved!"
There was so much tenderness in her manner that Philip sprang up, his eyes sparkling with rapture.
"And this is the avowal you have refused to make for five long years!" he cried. "I knew that my love was returned. You have confessed it; and if I were compelled to give my life in exchange for the happiness of hearing this from your lips, I should not think that I paid too dearly for it. But you have restored my energy and my courage. I feel strong enough, now, to defy the whole world in a struggle for the felicity that is rightfully ours. We shall live, Dolores, to belong to each other, to comfort each other."
"Do not, I entreat you, ask me to live," exclaimed Dolores, "since the certainty of death alone decided me to speak."
"But," pleaded Philip, "if I should succeed in rescuing you from the peril that surrounds us, would you be more rigorous than destiny? Would you not feel that God smiled upon our love, and that it was He who had mercifully united us again?"