So she talked herself into such a state of exalted enthusiasm that she became unmindful of time and place, and everything but the one thought that she still had more of what was best and purest within her to lay at his feet. But she had said as much as she could say, more than she could ever have believed she would confide to any human being, more than till this hour she had known of herself. He now held her noblest, truest self in the hollow of his hand, to do with it what he listed. All that was lax and impure, all that had brought ruin into her heart and life, was gone. She need no longer trouble herself about it.
While she had been telling him this wonderful tale, she would have liked to see what effect it had upon him, but had not trusted herself to glance at his face. Now, however, that it was finished, she ventured to turn in his direction, and became aware that his eye rested on her with a curiously confused and wild expression, such as she had never noticed in him before; for, as a rule, he kept his emotions at a distance with, as it were, fisticuffs. Her heart began to beat loudly, and the unrest of expectation to which she could give no name became so strong that she nearly ran to the other end of the boat to control it and prevent herself suffocating.
Then she saw him shut his eyes and throw his head back against the sharp edge of the seat. "You will hurt yourself," she whispered; and, instead of fleeing from him as she wanted to do, she placed her arm to serve as a cushion between his neck and the seat.
Now he lay on her breast and breathed heavily.
"Shall I sing you some more out of it?" she asked, bending over him tenderly.
"Yes, yes, please," he murmured.
And she sang, in a half-coaxing voice, as if she were singing lullabies, all those arias which, since the day her poor mother's mind had sunk into eternal night, had never been heard by any human ear. "The lily of the valleys" and "The rose of Sharon" she sang, and that other lyric in which all the sounds and magic of spring were mingled:
"For, lo, the winter is past ... the flowers appear on the earth ... and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land."
So she went on singing, more and more. When she sometimes paused and asked if he had heard enough, he only shook his head and pressed closer to his soft pillow.
Once she glanced round and saw that they were moored in the reeds, and that it was now completely night. But why should she mind that? Somehow or other they would manage to get home.