This time he does not touch her. But his face looks so wicked and
menacing, as he stands leaning against the sun-dial-setting, as it
were, his black mark upon the very face of day--that her flight is
arrested by horror as she looks at him.
'I do not forget how many windows command a view of us,' he says,
glancing towards them. 'I will not touch you again; I will come no
nearer to you than I am. Sit down, and there will be no mighty
wonder in your music-master's leaning idly against a pedestal and
speaking with you, remembering all that has happened, and our
shares in it. Sit down, my beloved.'
She would have gone once more--was all but gone--and once more his
face, darkly threatening what would follow if she went, has stopped
her. Looking at him with the expression of the instant frozen on
her face, she sits down on the seat again.
'Rosa, even when my dear boy was affianced to you, I loved you
madly; even when I thought his happiness in having you for his wife
was certain, I loved you madly; even when I strove to make him more
ardently devoted to you, I loved you madly; even when he gave me
the picture of your lovely face so carelessly traduced by him,
which I feigned to hang always in my sight for his sake, but
worshipped in torment for years, I loved you madly; in the
distasteful work of the day, in the wakeful misery of the night,
girded by sordid realities, or wandering through Paradises and
Hells of visions into which I rushed, carrying your image in my
arms, I loved you madly.
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