Rossmoyne Part 35

"It is in a book below; I learned it by heart, to say it to you some day, and now I have done it. There, be quick! He will be _gone_ if you don't make haste. His patience by this time must be exhausted. Think what he has been enduring; I only hope he hasn't fainted from sheer fatigue, that's all!"

"Will you stay here till I come back," says Monica, nervously, "or will you come with me?"

"I shall stay here; and don't hurry on my account. I shall be quite happy with this lamp and your Chaucer. There, go now; and tell him I sent you. And," mischievously, "don't be civil to him, you know, but rate him soundly for presuming to disturb your worship at this hour."

"Oh! if any one sees me!" says Monica, quaking.

"You will never get hanged for a big crime," returns Kit, laughing; and then Monica steps out lightly, fearfully, upon the corridor outside, and so, with her heart dying within her, creeps past her aunt's doors, and down the wide staircase, and through the hall, and at last into the silver moonlight!

CHAPTER XII.

How Monica with faltering footsteps enters the mysterious moonlight, and how she fares therein.

What a noise the tiny gravel makes beneath her feet, as she hurries rapidly towards the garden! How her heart beats! Oh that she were back again in her pretty safe room, with the naughty Kit to scold! Oh, if Aunt Priscilla were to rise, and, looking out of her bedroom window, catch a glimpse of her, as she hastes to meet the man she has been forbidden to know! A thousand terrors possess her. The soft beauty of the night is unseen, the rushing of sweet brooks in the distance is unheard. She hurries on, a little, lithe, frightened figure, with wide eyes and parted lips, to the rendezvous she has not sought. And what a little way it had seemed in the glad daylight, yet what a journey in the silent, fearsome night! There are real tears, born of sheer nervousness, in her beautiful eyes, as she runs along the garden path, and at last--_at last_--finds herself face to face with Desmond.

"Ah, you have come!" cries he, gladly, going to meet her while yet she is a long way off.

"Yes." She can say no more, but her fear has departed at sight of him, and once more she grows calm, collected, and mistress of herself. She keeps well away from him, however, and holds out to him--that "white wonder"--her hand, from a very great distance, as it seems to him. Does she distrust him, then? Thinking of this, Brian takes the extended hand, and holds it in a clasp that though tender is light, and refrains with much forbearance from pressing his lips to it.

"To come _here_, and at this hour! It is madness!" says Monica, hastily.

"A very blessed madness, then, and with method in it: it has enabled me to see _you_."

"Oh, do not talk like that. You ought not to see me at all. And, now, what is it? Kit said you wanted me sadly."

"And so I do, and not only now but always."

"If," reproachfully, "it is nothing pressing, would not to-morrow have done?"

"To-morrow never comes. There is nothing like to-day; and how could I have lived till to-morrow? I could not sleep, I could not rest, until I had seen you. My heart seemed on fire. Monica, how could you have treated me as you did to-day?"

She is silent. The very fact of her not answering convinces him her coldness at the Barracks was intentional, and his tone takes an additional sadness as he speaks again.

"You meant it then?" he says. "You would not throw me even one poor glance. If you could only look into my heart, and read how cruelly I felt your unkindness, you might----"

"I don't know what you mean," says Monica. "Why should you talk of unkindness? Why should I be kinder to you than to another?"

"Of your grace alone; I know that," says the young man, humbly. He has paid court to many a town-bred damsel before this, and gained their smiles too, and their sighs; yet now he sues to this cold child as he never sued before, and knows his very soul is set on her good will.

"Why must you choose me to love,--_me_, of all the world?" says Monica, tremulously: "it is wide, there are others--and----"

"Because I must. It is my fate, and I am glad of it. Whom worthier could I love?" says the lover, with fond, pa.s.sionate reverence.

"Many, no doubt. And why love at all? Let us be friends, then, if it is indeed decreed that our lives meet----"

"There could never be mere friendship between you and me. If your heart sleeps, at least your sense must tell you that."

"Then I could wish myself without sense. I want to know nothing about it. Alas! how sad a thing is love!"

"And how joyous! It is the one emotion to be fed and fostered. 'All others are but vanity.' I will persist in loving you until I die."

"That is a foolish saying; and, even if you do, what will come of it all?" says Monica, with a sigh.

"Marriage, I trust," returns he, right cheerily. "Because, to give you another example of love's endurance, and to quote old Southey to you, I will tell you that he says,--

"'It is indestructable; Its holy flame forever burneth: From heaven it came, to heaven returneth.'

but not yet awhile, I hope."

"You are a special pleader," says she, with a sudden smile.

"For the cause that I plead I would that I were a more eloquent advocate."

"You are eloquent enough," glancing at him for a moment, and then again turning away from him; "too eloquent," she says, with a little sigh.

He is still holding her hands, but now he does not speak or answer her in any wise. A silence falls upon them, calm as the night. In "full orbed glory" the moon above sails through the skies.

"A dewy freshness fills the silent air; No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain, Breaks the serene of heaven."

"There is one thing I must say, Monica," says the young man at last, lifting her face gently with one hand until her eyes look into his own: "remember, my life is in your hands."

"Do not overburden me," she answers, but in so low a voice that it can scarce be heard. Yet _he_ hears.

"My darling, must I be a burden to you?" he says. "Monica, if this my courtship is hateful to you, or more than you can bear, dismiss me now, and I will go from you, no matter what it costs me."

"You are no true lover, to talk like that," she says, with a shadowy smile.

"I am lover enough to wish you no pain or weariness of spirit."

"I doubt you are too good for me," she answers with a little burst of feeling.

"I must be a paragon indeed if that be so," returns he. "Oh, Monica, if you could only love me!"

"I _dare_ not." Then, as though sorry for these words, she holds out her hands to him, and says, with a quick smile, "Oh, Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?"

"I wish I knew," returns he sadly. "Yet if I were sure of one thing I should not despair. Monica, tell me you don't like Ryde."

"I can't," says Monica. "He is very kind to me always. I am sure I ought to like him."

"How has he been kind to you?"

"Oh, in many ways."

"He has brought you a cup of somebody else's tea, I suppose, and has probably trotted after you with a camp-stool; is that kindness?"