Page:William Le Queux - The Temptress.djvu/60

Rh respect melted into love, she quivered at the simple words in which he poured forth his whole soul:

"I love you. Why need you fear?"

He uttered these words with a slight pressure of the hand, and a look which sank deep into her heart.

Then they exchanged a few tremulous words—those treasured speeches which, monotonous as they seem, are as music in the ears of lovers. The artist and his friend were by this time out of sight, and they were left to themselves to enjoy those brief half-hours of happiness which seldom return, which combine the sadness of parting with the radiant hopes of a brighter day, and which we all of us grasp with sweet, trembling joy, as we stand on the threshold of a new life.

And Valérie—forgetting everything, absorbed in a dream which was now a tangible reality—sat silent, with moist and downcast eyes. Hugh continued to smile, and murmured again and again in her ear:

"I love you."

The pier was almost deserted, and, heedless of the rest of the world, they sat enraptured by love, lulled by the soft splashing of the sea, and bathed in the glorious golden sunshine.