He looked at her in amaze; that _she_ should be speaking to _him_ of the nature of love with that look of divine compassion in her eyes was a thing altogether too strange and perplexing. Her very attitude and quiet composure told of a heart unruffled as yet by any touch of human passion, and yet she was turning upon him and rebuking him for his ignorance. It was she who broke the momentary pause, seeming almost to read his thoughts. “You wonder how I know perhaps, but, ah! if you had seen my father and mother together you would have understood. If you had known what love there was between my mother and me, you would understand. Do not I know what love is? Ah! do I not? It is the power to lay bare the innermost sanctuary of your soul, and to know that you will be understood, helped, strengthened, comforted. It is the knowledge that thoughts too deep, and hopes too wonderful and mysterious for words are shared together, and can be whispered of together without being tarnished by the poor attempt to reduce them to speech; the consciousness that in everything we are in accord, that we are often thinking the same things at the same moment; the knowledge that the deeper and deeper we go the more and more sympathy and sweet accord there is between us; that not only are we one in opinion about temporal and changing things, but knit close, close together in soul and spirit as well, sharing the same faith, the same hope, the same love! Ah! Eustace! if you had known such a love as that, you could never think that there would be happiness for you and me in linking our lives together!”