Stella nestled closer to his side, and John turned his swarthy, eager face toward her.
“Now, while the storm roars,” he whispered, “and shuts out the world, drawing us closer together—so close I feel that there is no world beyond the touch of your hand and the music of your voice—won’t you tell me what my heart is starving to hear?”
“Do you realise what it means for a girl to say to a man, ‘I love you?’” she asked slowly.
“I do,” was the quick answer.
“In all its depths?”
“Yes. It means the utter surrender of soul and body or it means nothing!”
“And yet, you ask that I say it?”
“I know that I’m not worthy, but Love has always dared to claim its own, soul crying to soul, mate calling to mate—I love you! I love you! Ah! The story is old as the throb of life, yet always new and full of wonder. I know it’s too much to ask, yet I dare to ask it.”
“There should be no shadows between those who thus love, should there?” she asked with a far-away dreamy look as if his burning words had caught her spirit in their spell.
“No,” he answered, solemnly. “A thousand times I’ve longed to tell you how tender was my sympathy for you in the tragedy that threw its shadow across your young life in this hall a few months ago.”