at sweet unconsciousness which
is the perfection of Love, as if it was in obedience to some command
uttered before the beginning of the world. Probably without any
conscious effort on either side--I know there was none on mine--our
mouths met in the first kiss of love.

At the time nothing in the meeting struck me as out of the common. But
later in the night, when I was alone and in darkness, whenever I thought
of it all--its strangeness and its stranger rapture--I could not but be
sensible of the bizarre conditions for a love meeting. The place lonely,
the time night, the man young and strong, and full of life and hope and
ambition; the woman, beautiful and ardent though she was, a woman
seemingly dead, clothed in the shroud in which she had been wrapped when
lying in her tomb in the crypt of the old church.

Whilst we were together, anyhow, there was little thought of the kind; no
reasoning of any kind on my part. Love has its own laws and its own
logic. Under the flagstaff, where the Vissarion banner was wont to flap
in the breeze, she was in my arms; her sweet breath was on my face; her
heart was beating against my own. What need was there for reason at all?
_Inter arma silent leges_--the voice of reason is silent in the stress of
passion. Dead she may be, or Un-dead--a Vampire with one foot in Hell
and one on earth. But I love her; and come what may, here or hereafter,
she is mine. As my mate, we shall fare along together, whatsoever the
end may be, or wheresoever our path may lead. If she is indeed to be won
from the nethermost Hell, then be mine the task!

But to go back to the record. When I had once started speaking to her in
words of passion I could not stop. I did not want to--if I could; and
she did not appear to wish it either. Can there be a woman--alive or
dead--who would not want to hear the rapture of her lover expressed to
her whilst she is enclosed in his arms?

There was no attempt at reticence on my part now; I took it for granted
that she knew all that I surmised, and, as she made neither protest nor
comment, that she accepted my belief as to her indeterminate existence.
Sometimes her eyes would be closed, but even then the rapture of her face
was almost beyond belief. Then, when the beautiful eyes would open and
gaze on me, the stars that were in them would shine and scintillate as
though they were formed of living fire. She said little, very little;
but though the words were few