He went over to her, and, lifting the hand from the
closed eyes, he put it to his lips.
"Adrienne," he says, tenderly and wonderingly, "you are crying! Why?"
"I am crying for so many things! For joy and despair and hope and dead
love, because this means nothing to you and everything to me, because I
love you and you love me not, because you once loved me--!" She stopped
in an access of anguish and, sobbing, knelt before him. The humility of
true love had at last mastered her.
"Not to me--not to me," he said, unsteadily, lifting her.
"And why not to you? There is no one so true, no one I honor so much! In
my pride and ignorance I thought you were not the equal of these fine
gentlemen who have abandoned their King and their country. But I have
learned to know you, and my own heart, and what I have thrown away! I am
not ashamed to say this--to own to you that I love you." She threw back
her head and looked at Calvert with eyes that shone with a sorrowful
light. "For you once told me that you loved me, and though I know I have
lost that love, the memory that I once had it will stay with me and be
my pride forever.
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