To his slower temperament and saddened nature they seemed preternatural; as if she were all of a sudden changed into a bird, or some gay creature outside the pale of human life,—outside and above it.
“You speak as the birds sing, my Majella,” he said slowly. “It was well to name you Majel; only the wood-dove has not joy in her voice, as you have. She says only that she loves and waits.”
“I say that, too, Alessandro!” replied Ramona, reaching out both her arms towards him.
The horses were walking slowly, and very close side by side. Baba and Benito were now such friends they liked to pace closely side by side; and Baba and Benito were by no means without instinctive recognitions of the sympathy between their riders. Already Benito knew Ramona's voice, and answered it with pleasure; and Baba had long ago learned to stop when his mistress laid her hand on Alessandro's shoulder. He stopped now, and it was long minutes before he had the signal to go on again.
“Majella! Majella!” cried Alessandro, as, grasping both her hands in his, he held them to his cheeks, to his neck, to his mouth, “if the saints would ask Alessandro to be a martyr for Majella's sake, like those she was telling of, then she would know if Alessandro loved her! But what can Alessandro do now? What, oh, what? Majella gives all; Alessandro gives nothing!” and he bowed his forehead on her hands, before he put them back gently on Baba's neck.
Tears filled Ramona's eyes. How should she win this saddened man, this distrusting lover, to the joy which was his desert? “Alessandro can do one thing,” she said, insensibly falling into his mode of speaking,—“one thing for his Majella: never, never say that he has nothing to give her. When he says that, he makes Majella a liar; for she has said
