CHAPTER LXX.
THE MIDNIGHT WALK.
"I could not sleep, though I had seemed tranquil all the evening. Mr. Dennison, having been broken in his rest the night before, slumbered heavily, and this made my wakeful solitude unendurable. The moon shone brightly, and the cool air came through the window with enticing sweetness. All day long I had been cramped and restless in the house, which was growing hateful to me. Oh how I longed for that grand solitude which lies in space! A wild desire to escape from the deep breathing of my husband seized upon my mind. I dressed myself in noiseless haste, and gliding down-stairs, opened a French window, and fled through it breathlessly. I had no object in view, and all places were alike to me, so long as I could breathe freely, and cry aloud without fear of being overheard. But a footpath lay before me, and I followed it on and on till I came to the pond, or lake, which I had visited with Lawrence on the first day of his coming. It was perfectly beautiful that night. Here and there a ripple, as of ten thousand diamond chains tossed on the waters, followed some current, and died off in the shadows. The dusky green of the magnolia-tree was kindled up with gleams and touches of silver, while its sleeping flowers filled their great chalices of snow with moonlight, and bathed themselves in its dewy radiance. If my heart had not been sad before, the exquisite stillness of this scene would have rendered it so; the very ripple of the waters among the lily pads affected me like music, and the dark trailing of the mistletoe-boughs, which were strangling the great live-oak with ten thousand leafy caresses, made me almost afraid, they were so ghostly.
"I went into the black shadow of this grand old tree, sat down with my back against its trunk, and fell into a passion of bitter weeping. Why had I become all at once so unhappy? What sorrow, or cause of sorrow, had fallen upon me? I would not even attempt to answer this question, but asked it over and over again, as if the solution were not in my own heart reproaching me.
"All at once I heard a noise in the grass—the steady fall of a man's foot. I hushed my tears, and drew my shawl over the white dress that threatened to betray me, even buried as I was in deep shadows. A tall figure directly after appeared in the moonlight, standing by the lake. I knew it at once. He also had come out into the beautiful night, unhappy, perhaps, and restless as myself. He stood awhile motionless, then I saw him move away, and walk quickly up and down the shore, as if the beauty of the night filled him with irrepressible inquietude. Then I asked myself why he could not rest, and what feelings had driven him forth. My heart gave a reply which turned its sadness into excitement. Still I neither moved nor spoke, but watched his abrupt movements to and fro with breathless interest. Ah, he was wretched as myself—the thought of parting had driven him forth. I was sure of that, and the certainty was like a triumph.
"All at once Lawrence turned from the moonlight, and plunged into the black shadows of the oak, where he walked up and down like a disturbed spirit. I could hear broken words fall from his lips, as if he found it a relief to speak aloud in the solitude. There was passion and pathos in his voice, but I gathered no other meaning from the sounds that reached me.
"Perhaps I stirred, and by a movement of my shawl revealed the whiteness of my dress, for he came toward me, exclaiming,—
"'Great heavens! what is this?'
"I shrunk back against the body of the oak, and huddled the shawl around my person, hoping thus to escape his observations; but he came close to me, and said very quietly, though his voice trembled a little,—
"'Do not hide yourself, but come out into the moonlight. I felt that you would be here.'
"I arose, obedient as a little child, and walked by his side toward the magnolia-tree, where the moonlight fell in white radiance.