even if she had made the effort.

Whatever it may have been, out there in the street, that had alarmed
her, she forgot it, and my arms were around her, her lithe, sinuous,
pulsing body was crushed madly against my own, and our lips had met
before either of us realized it. We had mutually recognized the strange
and overwhelming instinct of love, that had asserted its control over
both at the self-same instant. I forgot the world, the flesh and the
devil, the czar, Russia, and nihilism, and she forgot even that
uppermost terror that was tearing at her heart, in that supreme moment
of the rapturous recognition of love.

We were unconscious of the fact that we were standing directly before
the window, where we must have been for the moment in full view of
persons passing in the street; we had forgotten everything, save each
other.

We were both silent; there was no occasion for words; our souls were
speaking to each other in a language of their own, God-given and
complete, which leaves nothing to be understood, which comprehends all
things.

In such supreme moments as that one was, heart speaks to heart with a
complete understanding which passeth all human knowledge, and which can
be understood only by the two who are most concerned, and by God, who
created such impulses.

Presently we were back again beside the low divan. She was seated upon
the edge of it, and I was beside her, with one knee on the floor,
clasping both her hands in one of mine, while the other still encircled
her body, holding her tightly against me in that rhapsody of love which
overawes all sense of understanding.

Her head rested lightly upon my shoulder; stray tresses of her hair
brushed against my temple and my cheek; her half-parted lips, glowing
like newly opened rose-buds, never attained a distance of more than an
inch from mine, and for the most part they were together, as lightning
conductors of every thrill that pulsed through her being and mine.

When our lips were not in contact, our eyes were; they were gazing into
the utmost depths of each other's soul, reading and understanding all
that was mutually expressed, charmed and fascinated by the beauteous
panoramic scenes which flittered in love-phantoms past our prophetic
vision.

"My love! my love!" she murmured over and over again, as if it were all
she could utter, and as if with the use of that expression all things
were said and done; and I replied as inevitably and comprehensive