'Blessings on the rain!' answered Stradella devoutly. 'I never loved it before!'
'You should not have come on such a night—I mean——'
She stopped and he saw her blush in the faint light that came up from the lamp on the floor.
'I had no choice, since I had promised,' he answered. 'And I promise you I will come to-morrow again——'
'Oh, do not promise—please!' She seemed distressed.
'Yes, I will come to-morrow and every night, until you come away with me. I will bring you a disguise in which you can travel safely till we are over the Venetian border and free.'
'But I cannot—I will not!' she protested. 'You speak as if—as if——'
'As if we loved each other, heart and soul, for life or death,' he said, not letting her go on, and taking her hand again. 'I speak as if we had been born into the world only for that, to love and live and die together! As if there were no woman for me but you in all the earth, and no man for you but me! As if our lips had promised and had met!'
She was drinking his words, and her eyes were in his as he bent to her face. But then she started, in returning consciousness, and tried to draw back.
'No, no!' she cried, in sudden maiden distress. 'Not yet! It is too soon!'