Love Among the Ruins by Warwick Deeping

Silence fell between them for a season, a silence deep and intangible as the darkness of the woods. The man's mood had recovered its subtle calm, even as a pool that has been stirred momentarily by the plashing of a stone sinks into rippleless repose. He sat with folded arms before the flare of the fire, watching the girl under his heavy brows.

She was very fair to look upon, slim, yet spirited as a band of steel. Her ears shone out from her dusky hair like apple blossoms in a mist of leaves. Her lips were blood-red, sensitive, clean as the petals of a rose. Her great grief had chastened her. From the curve of her neck to the delicate strength of her white hands, she was as rich an idyll as a man could desire.