Every time she bent forward into the light from the stove door, it fell upon her expressive face, while I, in my endeavour to be true, told her, possibly with exaggerated colouring, all about my mental condition, and what Dr.K.had said.
As I talked I saw her face growing paler and more and more serious, until at last, leaning her elbows on her knees, she covered her eyes with her hands so that I could only see that her lips were trembling and that she was crying.
When I came to what the doctor had said about my condition resembling that of a leper, and that thus God Himself had placed an obstacle in the way of our union, while I tried consolingly to represent to her that for the whole of our life, with the exception of the last two years, we had really loved one another in a different way, like brother and sister--she suddenly raised her head in wild defiance, so that I could look straight into her tear-stained face, threw her arms around my neck and forced me down on my knees in front of her.

She pressed my head close up to her throbbing heart as if she would defend me against all who wanted to injure me.

Then with her hand she stroked the hair back from my forehead--I felt her tears falling on my face--and she repeated caressingly again and again as if in delirium, that no one in the world should take me from her.
This was too much for my weary, suffering heart; I seized both her hands in mine and cried over them, with my head in her lap.

My weeping grew more violent, until at last it rose to a desperate, convulsive sobbing, which I could no longer control, and which thoroughly alarmed Susanna; for she hushed me, called me by my name, and kissed me like a child, to quiet me.

I felt such a deep need of having my cry out, that it could not now be stopped.
When at last I became quieter she once more clasped her hands about my neck, as if to compel my attention, bent forward, and looked long into my eyes with an expression both persuasively eloquent and strong-willed in her beautiful, agitated face.