He did not move and did not speak, and presently she touched his hands softly with her slender fingers, it seemed like the caress of an angel’s wing.

“Listen,” she said, so gently.  “Oh, you must not grieve—­but it was too good to be true, our day.  I ought to have known to where we were drifting, I am wicked to have let you say all you have said to-day, but oh, I was asleep, I think, and I only knew that I was happy.  But now you have shown me—­and oh, the dream is broken up.  Come, let us go back to the world.”

Then he raised his eyes to her face, and they were haggard and miserable.

How her simple speech, blaming herself who was all innocent, touched his heart and filled him with shame at his unworthiness.

“Oh, forgive me!” he pleaded.  “Oh, please forgive me!  I am mad, I think, I love you so—­and I had to tell you—­and yes, I will say it all now, and then you can punish me.  From the first moment I looked into your angel eyes it has been growing, you are so true and so sweet, and so miles beyond all other women in the world.  Each minute I have loved you more—­and all the time I thought to win you.  Yes, you may well turn away, and shrink from me now that you know the brute I am.  I thought I would make you love me, and you would forgive me then.  But I have suddenly seen your soul, my darling, and I am ashamed, and I can only ask you to forgive me and let me worship you and be your slave—­I will not ask for any return—­only to worship you and be your slave—­that I may show you I am not all brute and may earn your pardon.”

And then Theodora’s blindness fell from her and she knew that she loved him—­she had faced the fact at last.  And all over her being there thrilled a mad, wild joy.  It surged up and crushed out fear and pain—­for just one moment—­and then she too, in her turn, covered her face with her hands.

“Oh, hush! hush!” she said.  “What have you done—­what have we both done!”

It was characteristic of her that now she realized she loved him she did not fence any longer, she never thought of concealing it from him or of blaming him.  They were sinners both, he and she equally guilty.

Another woman might have argued, “He is fooling me; perhaps he has said these things before—­I must at least hide my own heart,” but not Theodora.  Her trust was complete—­she loved him—­therefore he was a perfect knight—­and if he was wicked she was wicked too.

Her gentian eyes were full of tears as she let fall her hands and looked at him.  “Oh yes, I have been asleep—­I should have known from the beginning why, why I wanted to see you so much—­I should never have come—­and I should have understood in the wood that we could not leave it without bringing Love with us—­and now we may not be happy any more.”

And then it was his turn to be exalted with wild joy.

“Do you know what you have said,” he whispered, breathless.  “Your words mean that you love me—­Theodora—­darling mine.”  And once again passion blazed in his eyes, and he would have taken her in his arms; but she put up her hands and gently pushed him from her.