You may believe me.

Here I stand for truth itself." "What's that to me what you are ?" he answered.

"At a sign from you I would climb up to the seventh heaven to bring you down to earth for my own--and if I saw you steeped to the lips in vice, in crime, in mud, I would go after you, take you to my arms--wear you for an incomparable jewel on my breast.

And that's love--true love--the gift and the curse of the gods.

There is no other." The truth vibrating in his voice made her recoil slightly, for she was not fit to hear it--not even a little--not even one single time in her life.