Drawing herself up she stood, both hands pressed on her heaving breast, as if her great pain were piercing her through and through.
"What is it?... What is it?... What can it be? I do not understand!"
Eric rose also, and stood trembling before this unheard-of miracle that had come to pass.
A great fear came to him and swept with a cold wind over his immensity of joy. Would she suddenly close her mind again to his flaming love, now that he had at last aroused her sleeping soul?
"Oh, my love, my love!" he cried. "It is I, it is I, who have come over the distant seas, who have travelled through sun and shade, through storm and calm, who have passed through the Shadow of Death to reach the heaven of thy face; look at me with thy awakening eyes, and tell me that life is sweet."
"Life!" said the girl, her two hands still tightly clutching at her pulsing heart.
"Life, what is Life?"
"Life," cried Eric, "is contained in this one hour of perfect attainment. Life is the great promise of love fulfilled. Life is the sacred moment when my arms may clasp thee to my thirsting soul!
"Come, my beloved, for I have waited so cruelly long, so tirelessly have I searched and yearned!"
Stella, moved by some unknown, mysterious force, timidly drew near to this stranger man, whose face was as fair as the angels with whom in her visions she had always dwelt.