The
cry which escaped her lips, the tone in which he breathed her name
in his hurried advance, convinced me that this was a meeting of two
lovers after a long heart-break and that I should mar the supreme
moment of their lives by intruding into it the unwelcome presence
of a stranger. So I lingered where I was and thus heard what
passed between them at this moment of all moments ire their lives.
"It was she who spoke first.
" Francis, you have come! You have sought me!'
"To which he replied in choked accents which yet could not conceal
the inexpressible elation of his heart:
"'Yes I have come, I have sought you. Why did you fly? Did you not
see that my whole soul was turning to you as it never turned even
to - to her in the best days of our unshaken love; and that I could
never rest till I found you and told you how the eyes which have
once been blind enjoy a passion of seeing unknown to others - a
passion which makes the object seem so dear - so dear - '
"He paused, perhaps to look at her, perhaps to recover his own
self-possession, and I caught the echo of a sigh of such utter
content and triumph from her lips that I was surprised when in
another moment she exclaimed in a tone so thrilling that I am sure
no common circumstances had separated this pair:
"'Have we a right to happiness while she - Oh, Francis, I can not!
She loved you.
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