Lenore was fighting many emotions now, the one most poignant being a wild desire to escape, which battled with an equally maddening one to hide her face on his breast.
Yet she could see how white he had grown—how different. His hands worked convulsively and his eyes pierced her very soul.
"What should a girl mean—telling she cared?"
"I don't know. Girls are beyond me," he replied, stubbornly.
"Indeed that's true. I've felt so far beyond you—I had to come to this."
"Lenore," he burst out, hoarsely, "you talk in riddles! You've been so strange, yet so fine, so sweet! And now you say you care for me!… Care?… What does that mean? A word can drive me mad. But I never dared to hope. I love you—love you—love you—my God! you're all I've left to love. I—"
"Do you think you've a monopoly on all the love in the world?" interrupted Lenore, coming to her real self. His impassioned declaration was all she needed. Her ordeal was over.
It seemed as if he could not believe his ears or eyes.
"Monopoly! World!" he echoed. "Of course I don't. But—"
"Kurt, I love you just as much as—as you love me.… So there!"