“But I have my own thank-offering to make to Notre Dame des Victoires, for I think I love God even better for your sake, Amélie.”
“Fie, Pierre, say not that! and yet I know what you mean. I ought to reprove you, but for your penance you shall gather more lilies, for I fear you need many prayers and offerings to expiate,—” she hesitated to finish the sentence.
“My idolatry, Amélie,” said he, completing her meaning.
“I doubt it is little better, Pierre, if you love me as you say. But you shall join in my offering, and that will do for both. Please pull that one bunch of lilies and no more, or Our Lady of Victory will judge you harder than I do.”
Pierre stepped from stone to stone over the gentle brook, gathering the golden lilies, while Amélie clasped her hands and silently thanked God for this happy hour of her life.
She hardly dared trust herself to look at Pierre except by furtive glances of pride and affection; but as his form and features were reflected in a shadow of manly beauty in the still pool, she withdrew not her loving gaze from his shadow, and leaning forward towards his image,
“A thousand times she kissed him in the brook,
Across the flowers with bashful eyelids down!”
Amélie had royally given her love to Pierre Philibert. She had given it without stint or measure, and with a depth and strength of devotion of which more facile natures know nothing.
Pierre, with his burden of golden lilies, came back over the brook and seated himself beside her; his arm encircled her, and she held his hand firmly clasped in both of hers.
“Amélie,” said he, “I believe now in the power of fate to remove mountains of difficulty and cast them into the sea. How often, while watching the stars wheel silently over my head as I lay pillowed on a stone, while my comrades slumbered round the campfires, have I repeated my prayer for Amélie de Repentigny! I had no right to indulge a hope of winning your love; I was but a rough soldier, very practical, and not at all imaginative. 'She would see nothing in me,' I said; and still I would not have given up my hope for a kingdom.”