The young girl looked shyly at him; then, noting the love-light in his eyes, and the glowing flush upon his cheeks, the while he had poured out all that he had felt for her, an answering blush stole over her own fair cheek; while a coy, dainty little smile seemed to flit airily around her mouth, setting into little dimples first here then there; in like manner as a ray of light, reflected from a mirror, will dance coquettishly to and fro in obedience to the hand that moves the glass.
There was silence for a space, she gazing downwards at the water, but now and then stealing a shy glance at her companion.
Then another line of thought passed over her mind and shadowed her face for a moment.
“I wonder,” she said with touching innocence, “what people see in me to like so much? I fear it is not always well that this should be. It was that which led—Zelus”—she shivered at the name—“to thrust himself upon, and at last threaten me, and has placed you in danger for having slain him. It is very strange! To like, to love, should mean naught but happiness and loving-kindness and innocent delight; yet here it has led a man to attempt an awful crime, and has placed others in great peril.”
“It was not love on that man’s part,” said Leonard, savagely, between his teeth. “At least, not the sort of love that urged me on, that has guided me—even as the unwinding of a clue leads the traveller through the maze—to the side of her I loved and worshipped in my visions. Mine is not the love that could ever do its object hurt; that could ever——”
He paused abruptly, seeing her glance up at him with a look of wonder on her face.
“You love me?” she exclaimed. “But that is past believing! ’Tis but a few days since you first saw me. You cannot know what I am really like! How then can you love me? I love my father because he has cared for me and loved me all my life; I love Zonella—and—and—other friends, because I have known them for so long, and they have been kind and good to me. How can you yet tell that you will love me? Perchance when you know me better you may even come to hate me.”
“Oh! Ulama! What is that you say?” he said impetuously. “You cannot mean it! You are playing with me! But it is cruel play! The love I mean is not such as the slow growth of a child’s affection for a parent or a girl-friend. It is a swift, resistless passion, that centres on one being above all others in the world, and says, ‘This one only do I love; this one possesses all my heart and soul! From this one I can never swerve—my love will end only when my heart no longer beats; I cannot live without it.’ Such a love bursts forth spontaneously from the heart, as does a tiny spring from the earth’s bosom and that, when once it has found vent, for ever bubbles up fresh and clear and pure, and, commencing in a little rill, increases to a torrent whose force no power can stem. That is the love I mean; and ’tis such a love I bear for you, Ulama. Can you not understand something of all this?”
“I know not,” replied the maiden in a low voice, and glancing timidly at him. “You frighten me a little—or you would, but that I like you too well to feel afraid of you—but—I have no knowledge of such love as you describe.”