could I doubt, when her lips were mine to kiss; and her blue eyes, after looking dreamily into mine, closed as if in ecstasy, while her cheeks grew pale as primroses, until it seemed that her dear life was about to flee away? She was mine. Could any other man's kiss be to her what mine was? No! we were one in body, brain and spirit, one for ever. Yet I loved her so well that, had it been needful, I could have given her up to another and I told her so. And she answered that, although she might die, she could never change and that for her there were no other future and no other love. I was cruel in my kindliness, she said: and she kissed me with her red lips and bid me never be so cruel again. Then, to my eyes, she became an angel; and God forgive me if I worshipped her, no longer a woman but a thing of glory, so lovely she was. She had bound me to her with a thousand fairy spells and tricks, until I no longer reasoned. To gaze upon her was to be her ready slave; and to kiss her was to enter paradise.
