“Ah, once for all,” said he, “not to torture me if my words should ill express my feelings, understand that my love is perfect; it carries with it absolute obedience and respect.”

She bowed as a woman satisfied, and said, “Then monsieur accepts the treaty?”

“Yes,” said he.  “I can understand that in a rich and powerful feminine nature the faculty of loving ought not to be wasted, and that you, out of delicacy, wished to restrain it.  Ah!  Francesca, at my age tenderness requited, and by so sublime, so royally beautiful a creature as you are—­why, it is the fulfilment of all my wishes.  To love you as you desire to be loved—­is not that enough to make a young man guard himself against every evil folly?  Is it not to concentrate all his powers in a noble passion, of which in the future he may be proud, and which can leave none but lovely memories?  If you could but know with what hues you have clothed the chain of Pilatus, the Rigi, and this superb lake—­”

“I want to know,” said she, with the Italian artlessness which has always a touch of artfulness.

“Well, this hour will shine on all my life like a diamond on a queen’s brow.”

Francesca’s only reply was to lay her hand on Rodolphe’s.

“Oh dearest! for ever dearest!—­Tell me, have you never loved?”

“Never.”

“And you allow me to love you nobly, looking to heaven for the utmost fulfilment?” he asked.

She gently bent her head.  Two large tears rolled down Rodolphe’s cheeks.

“Why! what is the matter?” she cried, abandoning her imperial manner.

“I have now no mother whom I can tell of my happiness; she left this earth without seeing what would have mitigated her agony—­”

“What?” said she.

“Her tenderness replaced by an equal tenderness——­”

“Povero mio!” exclaimed the Italian, much touched.  “Believe me,” she went on after a pause, “it is a very sweet thing, and to a woman, a strong element of fidelity to know that she is all in all on earth to the man she loves; to find him lonely, with no family, with nothing in his heart but his love—­in short, to have him wholly to herself.”

When two lovers thus understand each other, the heart feels delicious peace, supreme tranquillity.  Certainty is the basis for which human feelings crave, for it is never lacking to religious sentiment; man is always certain of being fully repaid by God.  Love never believes itself secure but by this resemblance to divine love.  And the raptures of that moment must have been fully felt to be understood; it is unique in life; it can never return no more, alas! than the emotions of youth.  To believe in a woman, to make her your human religion, the fount of life, the secret luminary of all your least thoughts!—­is not this a second birth?  And a young man mingles with this love a little of the feeling he had for his mother.