She broke from him, for when he felt that he was hurting her his fingers relaxed. But she could not stay her own words.
'Yes, I love you,' she cried almost fiercely, as she stepped backwards. 'Right or wrong, I cannot unmake myself, and as for lying to you, I will not! God is my witness that I mean to love you living as I have loved you dead, without one thought of earth or one regret for what might have been! But, oh, may God forgive me, too, if I wish that we were side by side in one grave, at peace for ever!'
'No!' She interrupted him with rising energy. 'No, Giovanni, no! I was weak for a moment, but I am strong again. I can wait for you, and you will find strength to wait for me. You are so brave, Giovanni, you can be so generous, when you will! You will wait, too!'
'For the end that will be the beginning, for God's great To-morrow, when you will come to be with me for ever and ever, beyond the world, and all parting and all pain!'
There was a deep appeal to higher things in her words and in her voice, too, but it did not touch him; he only knew that at the very moment when she had seemed to be near yielding, the terrible conviction of her soul had come once more between him and her.
'There is no beyond,' he answered, chilled and sullen again. 'You live in a lying legend; your life is a fable and your sacrifice is a crime.'
The cruel words struck her tormented heart, as icy hailstones bruise the half-clad body of a starving child, out in the storm.
'You hurt me very much,' she said in a low voice.
'Forgive me!' he cried quickly. 'I did not mean to. I forget that you believe your dreams, for I cannot live in visions as you do. I only see a blind force, striking in the dark, a great injustice done to us both--a wrong I will undo, come what may!'
'You know my answer to that. You can undo nothing.'
'I am not answered yet. You say you love me--prove it!'
'Only my life can,' said the nun; 'only our two lives can prove our love, for we can live for each other still, perhaps we shall be allowed to die for each other, and in each other we shall find strength to resist----'
'No, not to resist all that is good and true in love.'
'I cannot see what you see,' he answered. 'Nothing human is beyond my comprehension, good or bad, but you cannot make a monk of me, still less a saint--a Saint Louis of Gonzaga, who was too modest to look his own mother in the face!'