"Do you really love me?" she asked in a low voice.
"I think, my darling, that no one ever loved as I love. I would that I might be given time to tell you what my love is, and that you might have patience to hear. What are words, unless one can say all one would? What is it, if I tell you that I love you with all my heart, and soul and thoughts? Do not other men say as much and forget that they have spoken? I would find a way of saying it that should make you believe in spite of yourself—"
"In spite of myself?" interrupted Faustina, with a bright smile while her brown eyes rested lovingly on his for an instant. "You need not that," she added simply, "for I love you, too."
Nothing but the sanctity of the place prevented Anastase from taking her in his arms then and there. There was something so exquisite in her simplicity and earnestness that he found himself speechless before her for a moment. It was something that intoxicated his spirit more than his senses, for it was utterly new to him and appealed to his own loyal and innocent nature as it could not have appealed to a baser man.
"Ah Faustina!" he said at last, "God made you when he made the violets, on a spring morning in Paradise!"
Faustina blushed again, faintly as the sea at dawn.
"Must you go away?" she asked.
"You would not have me desert at such a moment?"
"Would it be deserting—quite? Would it be dishonourable?"
"It would be cowardly. I should never dare to look you in the face again."