Page:The Eyes of Innocence.djvu/124

120 those rocks, looking at you from a distance as at a goal which I knew was, and wished it to be, inaccessible?

"But you came to me, Gilberte: that is all my excuse. You came to me out of kindness to my mother, perhaps also prompted by that instinct which makes us conscious of love where it lies deepest. What could I do against your fascination? I did not even struggle. I closed my eyes to all that was not you, you and your beauty and your smile and your charming grace and the colour of your hair and the freshness of your cheeks and the rhythm of your footsteps; and, with not a further thought of my oath or the inevitable consequences of my weakness, I accepted the infinite joy that came to me. Oh, Gilberte, those few weeks! ... But there was something which I had never imagined in my boldest dreams: you loved me, you also loved me.

"You love me, which means that happiness is within my reach to-morrow, the next