I said, musing: “To me it is like magic. I scarce dare speak, scarce breathe, lest the spell break.”
She was silent.
“—Lest the spell break—and this house, this room, fade away, leaving me alone, staring at the world once more.”
“If there is a spell, you have cast it,” she said, laughing at my sober face. “A wizard ought to be able to make his spells endure.”
Then her face grew graver. “You must forget the past,” she said; “you must forget all that was cruel and false and unhappy,... will you not?”
“Yes, madame.”
“I, too,” she said, “have much to forget and much to hope for; and you taught me how to forget and how to hope.”
“I, madame?”
“Yes,... at La Trappe, at Morsbronn, and here. Look at me. Have I not changed?”
“Yes,” I said, fascinated.