" She
paused abruptly, but Dartmouth made no comment; he stood motionless
in breathless expectancy. She put her hand to her head, and after a
moment continued haltingly:
"I--oh--I hardly know how to tell it. I seemed to be standing with
you in a room more familiar to me than any room in this castle; a room
full of tapestries and skins and cushions and couches; a room which
if I had seen it in a picture I should have recognized as Oriental,
although I have never seen an Oriental room. I have always had an
indescribable longing to see Constantinople, and it seemed to me in
that dream as if I had but to walk to the window and look down upon
it--as if I had looked down upon it many times and loved its beauty.
But although I was with you, and your arms were about me, we were not
as we are now--as we were before the dream: we had suffered all that a
man and a woman can suffer who love and are held apart. And you looked
as you do now, yet utterly different. You looked years older, and you
were dressed so strangely. I do not know how I looked, but I know how
I felt.
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