Page:Pontoppidan - Emanuel, or Children of the Soil (1896).djvu/194

 and take possession of all his senses. He loved her! He felt with all his soul that it was she of whom he had dreamt in his youth, whom he had yearned for all his life!

"Loose me!… Let me go!" she cried hoarsely between her teeth.

But he held her fast. If it had cost him his life he could not have let her go.

"Hansine!" he said in a voice which was meant to be calm, but he strove in vain to conceal his own passionate emotion.

"Can I not comfort you in any way? Have you no confidence in me?—Are you angry with me?—You must tell me that, I have thought about nothing else all day, because you would not speak to me,… and I have wanted so much to see you. Are you angry with me? If you would only answer that question, I would let you go. Do you hear, Hansine? you must not go before you have told me that. Are you angry with me?"

"No, let me go!"

But he did not loosen his hold. Something in her voice, and the wild beating of her heart, which he felt right up his arm, all at once enlightened him. Had he been blind? Was it possible that she, too The thought surged through his brain like a raging wind, and he became quite dizzy. He forced himself to be calm for fear of frightening her. Trembling, he bent over her and said: