ever seen her in the brightest days of Savoy. A feeling of deceitful
security and eternal possession entered into my heart, as my eyes fell
on her. She tried to stammer forth a few words on seeing me, but could
not. Her lips trembled with emotion. I fell at her feet, and pressed my
lips to the carpet upon which she trod. I then looked up to assure
myself that her presence was not a dream. She laid one of her hands
upon my hair, which thrilled beneath her touch, and holding by the
other to the marble of the chimney-piece, she too fell on her knees
before me. We gazed at each other at a distance. We sought words, and
found none for our excess of joy. We remained silent, but that very
silence and our kneeling posture was a language; I knelt full of
adoration, she full of happiness, and our attitude seemed to say, They
adore one another, but a phantom of Death stands between, and though
their eyes drink rapture, they will never be clasped in each other's
arms.




LXI.


I know not how many minutes we remained thus, nor how many thousand
interrogations and answers, what floods of tears, and oceans of joy
passed unexpressed between our mute and closed lips, between our
moistened eyes, between her countenance and mine. Happiness had struck
us motionless, and time had ceased to be. It was eternity in an
instant.

There was a knock at the street door; a sound of feet on the stairs. I