" Now this was not quite accurate, as Pilar must have been at
least two or three years old at the time, but mystic raptures take
no count of time. "My life is a continuation of hers. Your Spanish
love inherited the soul of your little Russian. Thus I have been
yours since my birth--and before. I loved you before ever I knew
you. I have had a presentiment of you, have felt and expected you
from the beginning. Hence my troubled seeking all the time, hence my
horror and shuddering when I discovered that I was mistaken, that it
was not the one I yearned for whose image I bore secretly in my
heart. Now I see why I was so irresistibly drawn to you from the
first moment I set eyes on you. The man of my dreams stood in bodily
shape before me. Here at last was my heart's dear image in flesh and
blood. I had no need to get to know you; I knew you already. My own,
my Wilhelm."
Real tears rolled down her cheeks as she spoke, and Wilhelm was not
sufficiently blase to scoff at the doting nonsense of a love-sick
woman. Love has enormous power, and at its heat all firmness, all
resistance, melts away. Pilar's affection filled Wilhelm with
heartfelt emotion and gratitude. He denied himself the right of
judging her, suspecting or doubting her, or of discovering dark
spots upon her shining orb.
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