Roseta even confused him the more. Come now; why did he go out to meet her on the way? What would the people say? If her father should be informed, how annoyed he would be!
"Why? Why?" asked the girl.
And the youth, sadder and sadder, and more and more timid, like a convicted culprit who hears his accusation, answered nothing. He walked along at the same pace as the girl, but apart from her, stumbling along the edge of the road. Roseta almost believed that he was going to cry.
But when they were near the barraca, and as they were about to separate, Tonet had an impulse: as he had been intensely silent, so now he was intensely eloquent, and as though many minutes had not elapsed, he answered the question of the girl:
"Why?... because I love you."
As he said it he approached her so closely that she even felt his breath on her face and his eyes glowed as if through them all the truth must go out to her; and after this, repenting again, afraid, terrified by his words, he began to run like a child.
So then he loved her!... For two days the girl had been expecting the word, and nevertheless, it gave her the effect of a sudden, unexpected revelation. She also loved him, and all that night, even in dreams, she heard him murmuring a thousand times, close to her ears, the same words:
"Because I love you."
Tonet did not await her the following night. At dawn Roseta saw him on the road, almost hidden behind the trunk of a mulberry-tree, watching her with anxiety, like a child who fears a reprimand and has repented, ready to flee at the first gesture of displeasure.
But the mill-girl smiled blushingly, and there was need of nothing more.