“I, sit down!” he cried. “I, sleep! Nay, Ellinor, do you not understand! I have been in bondage all this time, and now this blessed cup you gave me has set my soul free. First it ran like fire through my veins. It drove me out into the woods, I ran among the singing trees. I cannot tell how it was with me, but I felt strength growing within my soul. There was struggle, there was pain, but this giant strength grew up. I fought. One by one I broke the rusting chains that so long have bound me—I threw the links away! Memories, doubt, hate, despondency, I cast them all by! I stood in the glade, looked up to the stars. I was free—free, Ellinor, free to act, free to speak. To love you, to love you...! Then the trees took voice: ‘Go to her!’ they said, and waved their arms towards you. They ran with me. Straight as the arrow from the bow, I started, leaping over the mountains. And now, Ellinor, love, I have come!” He drew near to her as he spoke, and in his hands, cold as ice, he held both hers. She would not have drawn away if she could. About herself with David she had not a second’s doubt; by a look, she knew, she could have thrown him to her feet. His words flowed on like ceaseless music. Was woman ever wooed by lips so eloquent and so beautiful, with touch so passionate and yet so reverent! The pity of it: it was only a dream! “I knew you were waiting for me in your white garments, with your light burning. I knew you would open your inner door for me. Oh, faithful heart!” Now he raised both her hands and brushed them with his lips one after the other but so lightly that she hardly knew the caress. Then she felt his arms hover about her like wings: the shadow of a lover’s embrace. He bent his face close to hers. His voice, through passionate inflexions, sank to an undertone of tenderness. “You have stood beside me on my platform at night. You did not know it always, but you were always there! You have stood beside me in the dawn, and in the dawn I sought you in the garden. Ah, that morning I would have broken my chains and awakened to freedom if I could! Always, since that first night, my heart has been singing to you, though my lips were silent. But you heard, did you not, the song of my heart? I heard the song of yours, Ellinor, through all the evil things that beat around me, demons of the past that put troubles and discords between two songs that should ever rise together. Do not say anything—do not tell me anything of those dark hours!” he went on, arresting her as she was about to speak. The serenity of his own countenance became disturbed for a moment, its radiance overclouded. He fixed her, with piercing question: “Can I trust you?” And, her true eyes on his, she made answer: “To the death!” He drew a long deep breath; and, with both hands, made a gesture as if thrusting back victoriously some spectre enemy. Smiling, and with exultation clanging in his voice: