"He embraced her firmly, and remained silent. There was no need of telling her that he loved her. From his one exclamation, from this instantaneous transformation of the whole man, from the manner in which rose and fell that breast to which she clung so trustfully, from the manner in which the tips of his fingers touched her hair, Helen could see that she was loved. He was silent, but she needed no words. 'He is here, he loves; what more is there needed?' The calm of blessedness, the quiet of the undisturbed haven, of the attained goal, that heavenly calm which lends a meaning and a beauty to death itself, filled her whole being with a godly wave. She wished nothing, because she possessed everything. 'O my brother, my friend, my darling!' her lips whispered; and she herself knew not whose heart it was, his or hers, which was so sweetly beating and melting away in her breast. "But he stood motionless, enclosing in his firm embrace the young life which had just given itself entire unto him; he felt on his breast this new, priceless burden; a feeling of tenderness, a feeling of gratitude inexpressible, shivered into dust his hard soul, and tears, hitherto unknown to him, came to his eyes. "But she wept not; she only kept repeating: 'O my friend! O my brother!' "'Then you will go with me everywhere,' he said to her, some fifteen minutes later, as before enclosing and supporting her in his embrace. "'Everywhere, to the end of the earth; wherever you are, there shall I be.' "'And you are sure you do not deceive yourself? You know your parents will never consent to our marriage?' "'I am not deceiving myself; I know it.' "'You know I am poor, almost a beggar?' "'I know it.' "'That I am not a Russian, that I am fated to live beyond Russia, that you will have to break all your ties with your country and your family?' "'I know it, I know it.' "'You know also that I have devoted my life to a difficult, thankless task; that I ... that we shall have to expose ourselves not only to dangers, but to deprivation, and to degradation perhaps?' "'I know, I know it all ... but I love you.' "'That you will have to give up all your habits; that there alone, among strangers, you will perhaps have to toil?' "She put her hands on his lips. 'I love you, darling.' "He began to kiss warmly her narrow, rosy hand. Helen did not take her hand from his lips, and with a kind of childish joy, with laughing curiosity, she watched him covering with kisses now her hand, now her fingers. "Suddenly she blushed, and hid her face on his breast. "He gently raised up her head and looked firmly into her eyes. "'So God be with you,' he said; 'be thou my wife both before men and before God.'"