Page:Francesca Carrara 3.pdf/229

226 little hint, and the heart forces its way to the lips,—it must have the relief of words.

"I loved him when but a girl, when only alive to the intense happiness which he taught me could exist. I could have passed days, content but to look upon his face, to watch his shadow wave on the long and undulating grass; to hear his voice; and when he gazed on me—when he spoke, though in the most indifferent words—to feel my heart beat as if it had started into sudden existence, and yet could have died upon the moment—its every purpose of life fulfilled in that deep and unutterable delight. He loved me. I should have perished when his presence was no longer around me, had I not lived upon that sweet and secret knowledge. We met once more—he seemed changed; his unworthiness was forced upon me, and we parted—never, never to meet again! Humiliated, angry, resolved as I was, yet even then I loved him: all recent injury faded before the tender memory of our early love. At length I learned that we had both been cruelly deceived—that he was all I once believed him. Judge how my heart sprang back to its old allegiance, hopeless though it was—though it is! Marie, I tell you, that were every worldly advantage heaped in one balance, and his own exiled self placed in the other, I would rather follow him