“And if I am, I shall hope very soon to exchange it for a happier fellowship, Eva.”
She wouldn’t see what he meant, so he said, “Eva, shall I read to you?”
“Yes,” she said, “I should like it so much; I used to enjoy so much the poetry we read at Grindelwald.”
He took down Coleridge’s poems from the shelf, and read—
“All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
Are all but ministers of love,
And feed his sacred flame.”
He went on, watching her colour change with the musical variations of his voice, until he came to the verse—
“I told her how he pined,—and ah
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
In which I sang another’s love
Interpreted my own.”
He saw her breast heaving with agitation, and throwing away the book, he bent down beside her, and looked up into her deep eyes, and said, “Oh, Eva, what need of concealment? You have read it long ago, have you not? I love you, Eva, love you so passionately—you cannot tell the depth of my love. Do you return it, Eva?” he said as he gained possession of her hand.
She had won him then—the dream of her latter life. This was the noble Julian kneeling at her side. She trembled for very joy, and whispered—“Oh, Julian, Julian, do you not see that I loved you from the first day we met?” She regretted the speech the next moment, as though it had been wanting in maidenly reserve, but it was the first warm natural utterance of her heart; and Julian sprang up in an ecstasy of joy, and as she rose he claimed as his due a lover’s kiss.
She blushed crimson, but suffered him to sit down beside her; and they sat, hardly knowing anything but the great fact that they loved each other, till Mr Kennedy’s voice had ceased in the adjoining room, and he came in.