Again, as she saw his puzzled look, she gave way to her silvery, mocking mirth, while her eyes flung him a glittering challenge to approach. Eckhardt had recovered partial control over his feelings and met her taunting gaze steadfastly and with something of sadness. His face had grown very pale and all the warmth and rapture had died out of his voice, when he spoke again.
"I am Eckhardt," he said quietly, with the calm of a madman who argues for a fixed idea,—"and you are Ginevra—or her ghost—I know not which. Why did you return to the world from your cold and narrow bed in the earth and shun the man who worships you as one worships an idol? Is it for some transgression in the flesh that your soul cannot find rest?"
An ominous shuffling behind her caused Theodora to start. She turned her head as if by chance and when again she faced Eckhardt, she was as pale as death. Noting her momentary embarrassment, Eckhardt made a resolute step toward her, catching her hands in his own. He was dazed.
"Is this your welcome back in the world, Ginevra?" he pleaded with a passionate whisper. "Have you no thought what this long misery apart from you has meant? Remember the old days,—the old love,—have pity—speak to me as of old."
His voice in its very whisper thrilled with the strange music that love alone can give. His eyes burnt and his lips quivered. Suddenly he seemed to wake to a realization of the scene. He had been mocked by a fatal resemblance to his dead wife. His heart was heavy with the certainty, but the spell remained.
Without warning he threw himself on his knees, holding her unresisting hands in his.
"Demon or Goddess," he faltered, and his voice, even to his own ears, had a strange sound. "What would you have with me? Speak, for what purpose did you summon me? Who are you? What do you want with me?"
Her low laugh stirred the silence into a faint tuneful echo.
"Foolish dreamer," she murmured half tenderly, half mockingly. "Is it not enough for you to know that you have been found worthy to join the few chosen ones to whom this earthly paradise is not a book with seven seals? Like your sad-eyed, melancholy countrymen, you would analyze the essence of love and try to dissolve it into its own heterogeneous particles. If you were given the choice of the fairest woman you would descend into the mouldering crypts of the past, to unearth the first and last Helen of Troy. Ah! Is it not so? You Northmen prefer a theoretical attachment to the body of living, breathing, loving woman?"
He looked at her surprised, perplexed, and paused an instant before he made reply. Was she mocking him? Did she speak truth?