To my eyes also love and sympathy brought the tears; but in a
little while the fond, comforting words I spoke and my caresses
recalled her from that sad past to the present; then, lying back
as at first, her head resting on my folded cloak, her body partly
supported by my encircling arm and partly by the rock we were
leaning against, her half-closed eyes turned to mine expressed a
tender assured happiness--the chastened gladness of sunshine
after rain; a soft delicious languor that was partly passionate
with the passion etherealized.
"Tell me, Rima," I said, bending down to her, "in all those
troubled days with me in the woods had you no happy moments? Did
not something in your heart tell you that it was sweet to love,
even before you knew what love meant?"
"Yes; and once--O Abel, do you remember that night, after
returning from Ytaioa, when you sat so late talking by the
fire--I in the shadow, never stirring, listening, listening; you
by the fire with the light on your face, saying so many strange
things? I was happy then--oh, how happy! It was black night and
raining, and I a plant growing in the dark, feeling the sweet
raindrops falling, falling on my leaves.
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