It was very high now. Presently it would
climb higher and close above her head.
There were long intervals of silence now. The first rush of his speech
had spent itself, for he had told her much and she had heard it all,
even through the mists of her changing moods. And now that he was silent
she longed to hear him speak again. She could never weary of that voice.
It had been music to her in the days when it had been full of cold
indifference--now each vibration roused high harmonies in her heart,
each note was a full chord, and all the chords made but one great
progression. She longed to hear it all again, wondering greatly how it
could never have been not good to hear.
Then with the greater temptation came the less, enclosed within it,
suddenly revealed to her. There was but one thing she hated in it all.
That was the name. Would he not give her another--her own perhaps? She
trembled as she thought of speaking. Would she still have Beatrice's
voice? Might not her own break down the spell and destroy all at once?
Yet she had spoken once before. She had told him that she loved him and
he had not been undeceived.
"Beloved--" she said at last, lingering on the single word and then
hesitating.
He looked into her face as he drew her to him, with happy eyes. She
might speak, then, for he would hear tones not hers.
"Beloved, I am tired of my name. Will you not call me by another?" She
spoke very softly.
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