"
Like the cloud which just then swept across the valley, blotting out its
sunshine with a gloomy shadow, a troubled look flitted over Pauline's
face. But if the words woke any sleeping fear she cherished, it was
peremptorily banished, for scarcely had the watcher seen it than it was
gone. Her eyes still shone upon the ground, and still she prolonged the
bittersweet delight at seeing this humiliation of both soul and body by
asking the one question whose reply would complete her sad success.
"Gilbert, do you believe I love you still?"
"I know it! Can I not read the signs that proved it to me once? Can I
forget that, though you followed me to pity and despise, you have
remained to pardon and befriend? Am I not sure that no other power could
work the change you have wrought in me? I was learning to be content
with slavery, and slowly sinking into that indolence of will which makes
submission easy. I was learning to forget you, and be resigned to hold
the shadow when the substance was gone, but you came, and with a look
undid my work, with a word destroyed my hard-won peace, with a touch
roused the passion which was not dead but sleeping, and have made this
month of growing certainty to be the sweetest in my life--for I believed
all lost, and you showed me that all was won. Surely that smile is
propitious! and I may hope to hear the happy confirmation of my faith
from lips that were formed to say 'I love!'"
She looked up then, and her eyes burned on him, with an expression which
made his heart leap with expectant joy, as over cheek and forehead
spread a glow of womanly emotion too genuine to be feigned, and her
voice thrilled with the fervor of that sentiment which blesses life and
outlives death.
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