How leisurely those two horsemen rode toward the bridge! They were conversing earnestly, and the animals they rode moved close together, as if the riders were intent on some subject to which they feared giving full voice even in that profound solitude. They crossed the bridge at a walk, and without seeming quite conscious how it happened, the two men checked their horses close by the willows, and continued their conversation.
With one foot strained back and the other just lifted from the turf, ready to spring forward, Zulima had watched them coming, but somehow her heart sunk as they drew near, and without knowing it, she allowed that eager foot to sink heavily on the turf again, and shrinking timidly within her shelter, she waited with a beating heart for the conversation to be checked, that she might come forward without intrusion.
“Zulima!” they had used that name once, twice, before her agitation permitted the fact to convey any impression to her mind. But with that name was coupled another that would almost have aroused her heart from the apathy of death itself.
“We must convey it to her gradually; she must be subdued by degrees,” said Ross, smoothing the mane of his horse with one hand.
“Yes,” replied the other—the same man who had accompanied Ross on his visit to De Grainges’ cell—“with her inexperience and impetuous temper, there is no judging what extravagance she might enact. She might even start off in search of him, and then—”
Here a sensation of faintness came over Zulima, and she lost a few words. When the mist cleared from her brain, Ross was speaking.
“He would not see her. You do not know the man—see!”
Ross took a letter from his pocket, and the two held it between them, while Ross once or twice pointed out a paragraph with his finger and commented on it in a voice so low that Zulima could only gather what he said from the expression of his face.
The first words that she could distinguish were:
“This silence has already driven her wild; you will have a fine time of it when she hears this gossip about a rival.”