Page:The Eyes of Innocence.djvu/187

Rh I don't want to lift the veil that shrouds Gilberte. ... I prefer her so ... She is more mine like this ..."

He was walking up and down excitedly. Gilberte held out her arms to him. He flung himself on his knees before her:

"Gilberte, I beseech you, remain for me the dear unknown whom I loved from the first day that I saw her. I do not know what prompts me to beg this of you, but I want you to give me the intense joy of feeling that you exist only through me, that you are commencing your life with me, that you are heaping still more darkness upon your past so that your eyes may be obliged to turn still more towards the future. Be the unknown lady of the Logis. Be the unknown who mingled her dreams with mine, the dear unknown who came from I know not where, but who came to me, of that I am certain."

She hung on his words. He stammered, incoherently: