‘Sara!’ All the fire of his mother’s land was in his eyes, and all its voluptuous music in his voice. ‘You love me. You do not speak, but you tell me so. Look at me! Let me see it in your eyes once again, Sara, my love!’
There was exultation in his voice, and the exultation thrilled her. His passion over-mastered her, and almost terrified her, and yet it was rapture such as she had never dreamed of. Earth and heaven, with their deepest secrets, seemed suddenly opened to her—a flood of light over all.
‘Look at me!’ he exclaimed again, and it was more of a command than an entreaty.
‘Jerome!’ she said faintly, as he took her hands with gentle violence from before her face, and knelt on one knee beside her chair to do so. His ‘Look at me!’ rang in her ears; his eyes, which she felt were fixed upon her, attracted her irresistibly. Why was she so reluctant, so fearful of looking up? Perhaps because she knew that when their glances met her last power of concealment or resistance would be gone.
‘Sara!’ he whispered, and his voice, so near and so impassioned, at last compelled the look he demanded. Was it rapture, or was it pain—an agony of pain—that she felt? Was it the anguish of having to confess that she was mastered, conquered? She did not know. As he clasped her in his arms, and pressed his lips upon her lips, and kissed her cheek, her hair, her closed eyes, she felt that it might be heaven indeed, but that her heart was breaking with the greatness of her joy. Perhaps to reach heaven—to finally pass through its inner portals—a heartbreak might be necessary.
‘Do you remember when I was singing at Trockenau, and the countess thought I did it to oblige her?’ he asked presently.
‘Do I remember, Jerome? Shall I ever forget it? I have listened to no singing since. I could not, and would not.’
‘I sang Adeläida, if you remember?’ he said, but his eyes dwelt upon her face with an intentness which she felt to be almost tyrannous.
‘Yes, and you sang “Ich grolle nicht.” Why did you sing that?’ she said, with a kind of faint shudder. ‘It is such a terrible song.’
‘Why—I do not know. But tell me, was I right to come to-night?’ he asked, persuasively. ‘I fought a long battle with myself, as I told you. I was undecided up to the very moment of entering the house.’