"Now?"
"She will never be my wife!"
"Does she no longer love you?"
Philip's head drooped. There was a long silence; suddenly he glanced up.
"Why should I conceal it from you longer, Dolores? I love you; I love you as I loved you in years gone by when I first dared to open my heart to you; and since that time, in spite of the barriers between us, I have never ceased to love you. Nor can our love be a sin in the sight of Heaven since it is God's providence, in spite of your will, that brings us together again to-day. And I swear that nothing shall separate us now!"
Dolores had no strength to reply to such language, or to destroy the hopes which seemed even stronger now than in the past, and far more precious since three years of absence had not sufficed to extinguish them in the faithful and impassioned heart of her lover. Philip continued:
"Ah! if I could but tell you how miserable I have been since we have been separated. My Dolores, did you not know when you left the château in which we had grown up together to offer as a sacrifice to God the love you shared, did you not know that you took away a part of myself with you?"
"Stop!" she entreated, sinking into a chair and burying her face in her hands.
But he would not listen.