He looked in her face, surprised and disappointed; but she turned towards the sycamore and sat down beneath it.  He slowly followed her.  She signed to him to take a seat by her side, but he stood up in front of her, saying sadly and despondently.

“Always the same—­always calm and cold.  Is this fair, Paula?  Is this the overwhelming love of which you spoke?  Is this your response to the yearning cry of a passionately ardent heart?  Is this all that love can grant to love—­that a betrothed owes to her lover on the very eve of parting?”

At this she looked up at him, deeply distressed, and said in pathetically urgent entreaty:  “O Orion, Orion!  Have I not told you, can you not see and feel how much I love you?  You must know and feel it; and if you do, be content, I entreat.  You, whom alone I love, be satisfied to know that this heart is yours, that your Paula—­your own Paula, for that indeed I am—­will think of nothing, care for nothing, pray and entreat Heaven for nothing but you, yes you, my own, my all.”

“Then come, come with me,” he insisted, “and grant your betrothed the rights that are his due.

“Nay, not my betrothed—­not yet,” she besought him, with all the fervor of her tortured soul.  “In my veins too the blood flows warm with yearning.  Gladly would I fly to your arms and lay my head against yours, but not to-day can I become your betrothed, not yet; I cannot, I dare not!”

“And why not?  Tell me, at any rate, why not,” he cried indignantly, clenching his fist to his breast.  “Why will you not be my bride, if indeed it is true that you love me?  Why have you invented this new and intolerable torment?”

“Because prudence tells me,” she replied in a low, hurried voice, while her bosom heaved painfully, as though she were afraid to hear her own words; “because I see that the time is not yet come.  Ah, Orion! you have not yet learnt to bridle the desires and cravings that burn within you; you have forgotten all too quickly what is past—­what a mountain we had to cross before we succeeded in finding each other, before I—­for I must say it, my dear one—­before I could look you in the face without anger and aversion.  A strange and mysterious ordering has brought it about; and you, too, have honestly done your best that everything should be changed, that what was white should now be black, that the chill north wind should turn to a hot southerly one.  Thus poison turns to healing, and a curse to a blessing.  In this foolish heart of mine passionate hatred has given way to no less fervent love.  Still, I cannot yet be your bride, your wife.  Call it cowardice, call it selfish caution, what you will.  I call it prudence, and applaud it; though it cost my poor eyes a thousand bitter tears before my heart and brain could consent to be guided by the warning voice.  Of one thing you may be fully assured:  my heart will never be another’s, come what may—­it is yours