The cruel words struck her tormented heart, as icy hailstones bruise the half-clad body of a starving child, out in the storm.
'You hurt me very much,' she said in a low voice.
'Forgive me!' he cried quickly. 'I did not mean to. I forget that you believe your dreams, for I cannot live in visions as you do. I only see a blind force, striking in the dark, a great injustice done to us both—a wrong I will undo, come what may!'
'You know my answer to that. You can undo nothing.'
'I am not answered yet. You say you love me—prove it!'
'Only my life can,' said the nun; 'only our two lives can prove our love, for we can live for each other still, perhaps we shall be allowed to die for each other, and in each other we shall find strength to resist——'
'Not to resist love itself, Angela.'
'No, not to resist all that is good and true in love.'
'I cannot see what you see,' he answered. 'Nothing human is beyond my comprehension, good or bad, but you cannot make a monk of me, still less a saint—a Saint Louis of Gonzaga, who was too modest to look his own mother in the face!'
He laughed roughly, but checked himself at once, fearing to hurt her again.