"Santisima Virgen!" she murmured, and broke into a little quavering, uncertain laugh. "They speak of the cold blood of your race!"
"Alisanda!—Dearest one! Tell me I may come!"
She rose quietly, already calm again, and cold as the moonlight which shone full upon her face. I rose with her, still clasping her hand.
"Tell me, Alisanda, may I come?"
"Why ask me that?" she said, in an even voice. "Could I prevent if you wished to try?"
"If I cross the barrier, may I hope?"
"There would yet be the gulf."
"Gulf or barrier, I swear I will find my way to you, though it be through fire and flood! I will seek you out and win you, though you hide your beauty beneath a nun's veil!"
Such was the force of my passion, I again saw her bosom rise to a deep-drawn breath and the edges of her sensitive nostrils quiver. Yet this time she did not blush, and her voice cut with its fine-drawn irony: "Words—words!"
"I offer love. I ask nothing in turn but a word or a token—nothing but—my lady's colors."