"Do you doubt it still, Raoul?… Then know that each of my visits to Erik increased my horror of him; for each of those visits, instead of calming him, as I hoped, made him mad with love! And I am so frightened, so frightened!…"
"You are frightened… but do you love me? If Erik were good–looking, would you love me, Christine?"
She rose in her turn, put her two trembling arms round the young man’s neck and said:
"Oh, my betrothed of a day, if I did not love you, I would not give you my lips! Take them, for the first time and the last."
He kissed her lips; but the night that surrounded them was rent asunder, they fled as at the approach of a storm and their eyes, filled with dread of Erik, showed them, before they disappeared, high up above them, an immense night–bird that stared at them with its blazing eyes and seemed to cling to the string of Apollo’s lyre.
