Assuredly she was entirely different from what she had ever been before.
There was a little space of time, a sweet confusion of senses, when I could not but meet her half-way in tenderness.

Quite as suddenly, then she began to cry.

I whispered in her ear, cautioning her to be careful, that my life was at stake; and after that she cried silently, with one of her arms round my neck, her head on my breast, and her hand clasping mine.

So I held her for what seemed a long time.

Indistinct voices came to me and footsteps seemingly a long way off.