But she could not look at him, she could not speak to him as yet.

Her dark eyelashes drooped to her crimson cheeks.
"My beloved, do you hear me?
I am telling you how I have loved you since I first met your heavenly eyes.

This is no lover's rhapsody, my own, for your eyes are heavenly in their spiritual beauty.

And they have haunted me, Salome, like the eyes of a guardian angel ever since they first looked upon me.

Daily they would have drawn me to your side but for my wrecked and ruined state," he said, with a half suppressed sigh.
His look, his tone, and, more than all, his allusion to the calamity of his house, reached her soul, and broke the spell of reserve by which she was bound.
"Oh, do not say that you are ruined!" she cried, in a voice thrilled and thrilling with profound emotion.