Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/184

174 "They only say what my lips do—that you are the most beautiful and the dearest woman in the world. Let your lips only say, 'Frederick, I love you.'"

"Let us shut our eyes and imagine we are in the dark, then it will be easier to say," she said.

When the youth, at her bidding, closed his eyes, she stole from his side and ran smiling towards the door. In a moment he had followed her, and stood between her and it.

"My answer first, dearest," he said.

In the playful struggle that the girl made to pass the answer came, for when their hands touched they went into each other's arms, and at that moment saw the two women at the window.

"And why," said Lady Geraldine, moving a step towards her daughter, "cannot your son marry my child, since he loves her?"

"Because my son is dead!"

"Mother!"

"Are you mad?—what do you mean?" Lady Geraldine grasped her friend's hand in hers as though she feared her reason. "What do you mean? Your son is before you now."