“A moment, a moment!” cried Don Ippolito, catching his breath. “Will it ever be possible for me to win something more than honor and friendship there?”
She looked up at him askingly, confusedly.
“If I am a man, and the time should ever come that a face, a look, a voice, shall be to me what they are to other men, will she remember it against me that I have been a priest, when I tell her—say to her, madamigella—how dear she is to me, offer her my life’s devotion, ask her to be my wife?”...
Florida rose from the seat, and stood confronting him, in a helpless silence, which he seemed not to notice.
Suddenly he clasped his hands together, and desperately stretched them towards her.
“Oh, my hope, my trust, my life, if it were you that I loved?”...
“What!” shuddered the girl, recoiling, with almost a shriek. “You? A priest!”
Don Ippolito gave a low cry, half sob:—
“His words, his words! It is true, I cannot escape, I am doomed, I must die as I have lived!”
He dropped his face into his hands, and stood with his head bowed before her; neither spoke for a long time, or moved.