"Look at me!" he insisted. Her troubled eyes turned toward his, but dared not stay, and the lashes fell again.
"Do not commit the crime of marrying a man you do not love," he pleaded.
"But," said the girl slowly, "even if I gave him up I might not care for you."
"Dear," he said softly, "you do love me. Is it not so?"
She shook her head, but her face belied her.
"I have waited, waited for you," he pleaded, in that low tone to which her being vibrated as to masterful music, "so many lifetimes! I have found you out at last!"
"How long?" she asked willfully.
"Aeons," he answered. "Since the foundation of the world. I have waited, and now that I have found you, I will not let you go. I will not let you go!"
She looked at him with wide-opened eyes: a solemn fear possessed her. Was it Bertuccio's story of yesterday that filled her with foreboding? Hardly. Rather it seemed a pleasant thought that he and she should feel the bark of one of these great trees closing round them, and should have so beautiful a screen of brown bark and green moss to hide their love from all the world. No, no fear could touch the thought of any destiny with him: she was afraid only of herself.
"You are putting a mere nothing between us," the voice went on. "You are pretending that there is an obstacle when there is none, really."