"You love me? You?" He could not believe his ears.
"Why not?" she asked again, but so low that he could hardly hear the words.
He turned half round, as he sat, and covered her crossed hands with his, and for a while neither spoke. He was supremely happy; she was convinced that she ought to be, and that she therefore believed that she was, and that her happiness was consequently real.
But when she heard his voice, she knew, in spite of all, that she did not feel what he felt, even in the smallest degree, and there was a doubt which she had not anticipated, and which she at once faced in her heart with every argument she could use. She must have done right, it was absolutely necessary that what she had done should be right, now that it was too late to undo it. The mere suggestion that it might turn out to be a mistake was awful. It would all be her fault if she had deceived him, though ever so unwittingly.
His hands shook a little as they lay on hers. Then they took one of hers and held it, drawing it slowly away from the other.
"Do you really love me?" Guido asked, still wondering, and not quite convinced.
"Yes," she answered faintly, and not trying to withdraw her hand.
She had been really happy before she had first answered him. A minute had not passed, and her martyrdom had begun, the martyrdom by the doubt which made that one "yes" possibly a lie. Guido raised her hand to his lips, and she felt that they were cold. Then he began to speak, and she heard his voice far off and as if it came to her through a dense mist.
"I have loved you almost since we first met," he said, "but I was sure from the beginning that you would never feel anything but friendship for me."
A voice that was neither his nor hers, cried out in her heart: