"But Nature had been cruel. She had bestowed those matchless charms only to withdraw them too soon. I saw her and from that moment loved her: loved her for ever. There was no doubt or wavering in my mind. I approached her. She met me fearlessly, naturally, without thought of guile. To my delight she spoke perfect French, was evidently refined and educated. Her father was the proprietor of this little paradise. This meant that he was probably at ease in the world without being exactly rich. I quickly got to know him. Wooing in this part of the world is not a matter of months or years. Within a week of our first meeting, I was engaged to Arouya. Her father was only too willing to give her to one who was young, good-looking, above all had wealth at his command. Almost immediately, without counting the cost or reflecting upon the mistake of a union with one of another race and religion, we were married. But all the reflection in the world would have made no difference. I was borne on by a mighty torrent against which there was no struggling.
"For six months I lived a charmed, enraptured, secluded life with Arouya, my wife. We were intensely happy in each other's love: bliss that is rarely given to mortals. It was not a mere life of the senses; her mind was wonderfully pure, bright and expansive. From the very first I laboured to convert her to Christianity, and with singular clearness she grasped and embraced all its profound yet simple truths: became deeply, devotedly religious. This only seemed to strengthen her affection for me.
"But it was not to last. Almost from the day of our marriage I felt the shadow of the sword. Our happiness was to be as fleeting as it was perfect. Arouya was already stricken with mortal illness. Consumption had set its seal upon her. Before we had been married three months she began to droop; at the end of six months she died. Died in my arms, blessing the hour in which we had first met. I laid her in her far-off grave, within sound of the sea, which chants her eternal requiem.
"I will draw a veil over my grief. For the third time in my young life I was heavily stricken. But I have learned to see the hand of mercy in the blow, and in time I lived it down. It was an episode in my life so romantic, so sacred, that I never spoke of it even to the good Abbé. You are the first to whom I have confided it. The secret is locked in my own breast--and in yours.