“I love you—Edmond—I love you—I love you.”
The white hand rested upon her hair; the eyes of the man were looking over the city he had loved.
“There is nothing in the world but love, Beatrix,” he said, speaking in a voice so low that her ears must almost touch his lips; “all else that we live for, fame, glory, ourselves, money—they are nothing. If I had remembered my love for you, little wife—if I had remembered—”
He began to breathe with dreadful rapidity. She could feel his heart throbbing beneath her cheeks.
“Dearest,” she said, “let us remember nothing but the days to come. Oh, I will love you always, always—I have none but you, Edmond.”
He sought to kiss her lips, but could not raise his head from the pillow.
“I do not fear death,” he said very slowly, “if one might sleep upon the field with a cloak about the face and a sword in the hand. The grave is all dark. You will not let them lay me in the grave, Beatrix.”
“Oh, Edmond—oh, for God’s sake—how can I bear it?”
“You will come to me, little wife. I shall hear your voice in the loneliness of death. For that we love and are loved. Not to be alone through the eternal night! Ah, if you will remember then, beloved, when there is none to hear and my eyes are blinded! Ah, if you will come to me in that sleep! I have no right to ask. All that I would live for is here in my arms. They shall not take you from me, Beatrix—if you forgive!”