'Whither would you go?' Swedendorg asked, in a kindly tone.
'To the garden, into the free air!' quickly answered Arwed. 'It is becoming too warm for me here. Besides, I need solitude, that I may be able to form a proper determination.'
'I know it,' said Swedenborg. 'You will resolve as becomes you, and so, farewell. The Lord be with your sword!'
'We shall see each other again before I go,' said Arwed.
'I must travel still further to-day,' answered Swedenborg. 'I am now going to the Nasaalpe lead mines. I must afterwards visit the iron and copper mines in Tornea-Lappmark, and in a month I must be on my way back.'
'Possibly we may meet in Stockholm,' said Arwed, forgetting his banishment, 'and heaven grant it may be under better auspices!'
'Quo fata trahunt, retrahuntque sequamur!' cried Swedenborg with unction, and the youth hastened out.
'A noble spirit!' said Swedenborg, looking with complacency at his retreating form. 'It lay prostrate, sickened with love's pain and bitter hate; and behold, with only two drops of that steel-tincture, and his country's need, its strength revives, and labors, and throws off the materiam peccantem, and his heart is as pure, and fresh, and strong, as ever it was. Hail to the physician of the soul, who finds the seat of the disease; but thrice hail to the patient whose good disposition aids the cure.'
CHAPTER XXXIX.
As Arwed was striding back and forth in the most remote and darkly shaded avenue of the garden, buried in his own reflections, colonel Megret met him with a disturbed countenance. 'Time presses,' said he with eagerness; 'I must speak openly with you, major. That I love your cousin, you must long since have known--yet how fervently, you could not know. The delicate gallantry which we Frenchmen dedicate to the ladies, and the fear of affrighting or distressing her by the outbreaking of my passion, have thrown a veil over the fire which consumes me. I now confess to you that I could commit murder to possess her; I must win her hand or die.'