For a space we looked into each other's eyes across the short distance

that separated us. We were reading each other's souls, and both saw and

understood all that the heart of love could desire. It was an

undiscovered country to each of us, upon which we trod just then; a new

creation that was the sweeter because of its strangeness.

"I love you!" Zara whispered; and she came nearer until her hands

rested upon my shoulders, until her face was close to mine so that I

could feel her sweet breath against me. Her lips were parted slightly

in a half smile, and I knew that she had forgotten the waiting

karetta with its freight of assassins.

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I took her in my arms, slowly, tenderly, firmly. I held her pressed

closely against me for a moment and then my lips sought hers, and hers

sought mine. It was a oneness of desire, a singleness of purpose that

brought us together in the kiss of perfect love; and we remained so

while minutes sped. I closed my eyes and held her the more tightly

against me, so that I could feel the throbbing of her heart and the

quivering eagerness of her lithe body, warm against my own. We forgot

the dangers and perils that surrounded us; forgot the world and all it

contained; forgot life and death, czars and their empires, nihilists

and their plots, remembering nothing, in that great spasm of adoration.

We did not speak. There was no occasion for words. There came no

opportunity to utter them. But we breathed, and breathed together. Our

hearts throbbed in unison. Our souls communed, intermingled, blended

into one. We sighed together, thought together, until my own senses

reeled under the strain of it, and I knew that Zara was more than half

unconscious of all things save her present contact with me. Ah, heaven,

the greatness of it! The magnificence of that moment! The rapture of

her caress, and the great joy of mine to her!

Presently I felt her clinging arms relax and I guided her tenderly

toward a huge chair. I lifted her as if she were a child and put her

softly down among the cushions; and I dropped to my knees, still

holding her, still with my arms wound tightly around her.

For a long time after that we were silent, and Zara was the first to

rouse from our mutual revery.

"Dubravnik," she said, and you can have no idea how sweetly that name

was made to sound by her utterance of it, "I have not yet completed the

story I was telling you; but there is only a little more, and you must

hear it."

"Yes," I replied. "As you will, Zara. I am content. But need we go

more deeply into the sorrows of that poor girl and her suffering

brother? Let us rather talk of the great joy that has come to us.

There seems to be nothing but joy in the world, when I look into your

eyes. Ah, little one, it is sweet indeed to be loved by you."




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