And when she had concluded, the man beside her had forgotten the custom of the country, and its law had passed beyond him. He was as a man toward the maid now. Beside him wept the one he had loved as a dream girl. Behind him was the house with the bed she had laid him upon when she saved his life. And when he had awakened, before being conscious of where he was or what had happened to him, he had looked into her eyes and had seen therein his dream girl. She was his by the right of God; he forgot now that she was white while he was black. He only remembered that she was his, and he loved her.
His voice was husky when he answered:
"Agnes, oh, Agnes, I begged you not to. I almost beseeched you, because—oh, don't you understand what is in me, that I am as all men, weak? To have seen you that night—the night I can never forget, the night when you stood over me and I came back to life and saw you. You didn't know then and understand that I had dreamed of you these two years since I had come here: that out of my vision I had seen you, had talked with you, oh, Agnes!" She straightened perceptibly; she looked up at him with that peculiarity in her eyes that even she had never come to understand. They became oblivious to all that was about them, and had unconsciously drawn closer together now and regarded each other as if in some enchanted garden. She sang to him then the music that was in her, and the words were:
"Jean, oh, Jean Baptiste, you have spoken and now at last I understand. And do you know that before I left back there from where I came, I saw you: I dreamed of you and that I would know you, and then I came and so strangely met and have known you now for the man you are, oh, Jean!"
Gradually as the composure that had been theirs passed momentarily into oblivion, and the harvest birds twittered gayly about them, his man's arm went out, and into the embrace her slender body found its way. His lips found hers, and all else was forgotten.