Then she drew herself up and put her hand to her heart and turned even paler than she had been the evening before, seated between Prince Conrad and Comtesse Hermine. The image was emerging from the realm of mist; the reality grew plainer before her eyes and in her brain. This time she saw Paul!
He ran towards her, for she seemed on the point of falling. But she recovered herself, put out her hands to make him stay where he was and looked at him with an effort as though she would have penetrated to the very depths of his soul to read his thoughts.
Paul, trembling with love from head to foot, did not stir. She murmured:
"Ah, I see that you love me . . . that you have never ceased to love me! . . . I am sure of it now . . ."
She kept her arms outstretched, however, as though against an obstacle, and he himself did not attempt to come closer. All their life and all their happiness lay in their eyes; and, while her gaze wildly encountered his, she went on:
"They told me that you were a prisoner. Is it true, then? Oh, how I have implored them to take me to you! How low I have stooped! I have even had to sit down to table with them and laugh at their jokes and wear jewels and pearl necklaces which he has forced upon me. All this in order to see you! . . . And they kept on promising. And then, at length, they brought me here last night and I thought that they had tricked me once more . . . or else that it was a fresh trap . . . or that they had at last made up their minds to kill me. . . . And now here you are, here you are, Paul, my own darling! . . ."
She took his face in her two hands and, suddenly, in a voice of despair:
"But you are not going just yet? You will stay till to-morrow, surely? They can't take you from me like that, after a few minutes? You're staying, are you not? Oh, Paul, all my courage is gone . . . don't leave me! . . ."
She was greatly surprised to see him smile:
"What's the matter? Why, my dearest, how happy you look!"