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"Since I first saw you; but I only knew it on the night of the fire.
Till that night I resisted it like an idiot. Do you remember how we
used to argue? I rebelled so against my love! I imagined that I had
loved once already and once for all. But on the night of the fire I
knew that my love for you was different from all that had gone before
or would ever come again. I gave in to it at last, and oh! the joy
of giving in! I had fought against the greatest blessing of my life,
and I never knew it till I had given up fighting. What did I care
about the fire? I was never happier - until now! You sang through
my heart like the wind through the rigging; my one fear was that I
might go to the bottom without telling you my love. When I asked
to say a few last words to you on the poop, it was to tell you my
love before we parted, that you might know I loved you whatever came.
I didn't do so, because you seemed so frightened, poor darling! I
hadn't it in my heart to add to your distress. So I left you
without a word. But I fought the sea for days together simply to
tell you what I couldn't die without telling you. When they picked
me up, it was your name that brought back my senses after days of
delirium. When I heard that you were dead, I longed to die myself.
And when I found you lived after all, the horror of your surroundings
was nothing to be compared with the mere fact that you lived; that
you were unhappy and in danger was my only grief, but it was nothing
to the thought of your death; and that I had to wait twenty-four
hours without coming to you drove me nearer to madness than ever I
was on the hen-coop. That's how I love you, Eva," I concluded;
"that's how I love and will love you, for ever and ever, no matter
what happens."
Those sweet gray eyes of hers had been fixed very steadily upon me
all through this outburst; as I finished they filled with tears, and
my poor love sat wringing her slender fingers, and upbraiding herself
as though she were the most heartless coquette in the country.
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