"You forget how interested I am in the pictures," he said.
There was a pause. She looked up at him, and suddenly looked away
again; but--he saw it plainly--there were tears in her eyes.
"Do you mind turning down the gas?" she said. "My eyes have been
weak all day."
He complied with her request the more readily, having his own
reasons for being glad to escape the glaring scrutiny of the light.
"I think I will rest a little on the sofa," she resumed. In the
position which he occupied his back would have been now turned
on her. She stopped him when he tried to move his chair. "I would
rather not look at you, Ernest," she said, "when you have lost
confidence in me."
Not the words, but the tone, touched all that was generous and noble
in his nature. He left his place and knelt beside her, and opened
to her his whole heart.
"Am I not unworthy of you?" he asked, when it was over.
She pressed his hand in silence.
"I should be the most ungrateful wretch living," he said, "if I did
not think of you, and you only, now that my confession is made.
We will leave Munich to-morrow, and, if resolution can help me,
I will only remember the sweetest woman my eyes ever looked on as
the creature of a dream.
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