The
hours, filled at first with gentle talk, had ended in meditative
silence. They began to feel within them the wish for complete
possession; and presently they reached the point of confiding to each
other their confused ideas, the reflections of two beautiful, pure
souls. During these still, serene hours, Etienne's eyes would
sometimes fill with tears as he held the hand of Gabrielle to his
lips. Like his mother, but at this moment happier in his love than she
had been in hers, the hated son looked down upon the sea, at that hour
golden on the shore, black on the horizon, and slashed here and there
with those silvery caps which betoken a coming storm. Gabrielle,
conforming to her friend's action, looked at the sight and was silent.
A single look, one of those by which two souls support each other,
sufficed to communicate their thoughts. Each loved with that love so
divinely like unto itself at every instant of its eternity that it is
not conscious of devotion or sacrifice or exaction, it fears neither
deceptions nor delay. But Etienne and Gabrielle were in absolute
ignorance of satisfactions, a desire for which was stirring in their
souls.
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