"M. de Meilhan loves you, does he not?" I asked finally, with a vague feeling of uneasiness.
"Yes, yes," she cried, "he loves me to—madness!"
"He loves you, since he is jealous."
"Yes, yes," she cried again, "jealous as a—Mussulman." and then she began to laugh again.
"Why," I again asked, "if you did not love him, did you stay at Richeport two or three days after I left?"
"Because I expected you to return," she replied, laying aside her childish gayety and becoming grave and serious.
I told her of my love. I was sincere, and therefore should have been eloquent. I saw her eyes fill with tears, which were not this time tears of sorrow. I unfolded to her my whole life; all that I had hoped for, longed for, suffered down to the very hour when she appeared to me as the enchanting realization of my youthful dreams.
"You ask me," she said, "to share your destiny, and you do not know who I am, whence I come, or whither I go."
"You mistake, I know you," I cried; "you are as noble as you are beautiful; you come from heaven, and you will return to it. Bear me with you on your wings."
"Sir, all that is very vague," she answered, smilingly.