“Nothing, perhaps nothing:” she continued, whilst her voice faltered:—“but go, oh, go, and come again to-morrow, or next week, or when you will. I'll think on what you have said; but go; I tremble so; stay here no longer; think, should we be observed. I am ashamed to think of it. I am ashamed to look the moon in the face, ashamed to look into yours. Oh, sir, what have I done? What have you said? How have I answered? for I am perplexed. Away, yet come again; come fifty times; but stay no longer now; begone;—return though when you choose; do not wait for an invitation.—Listen, I hear it again; begone, begone; did you not hear something?—it was nothing, perhaps, but yet begone.”
“Never without your love pledge will I leave you,” replied Montigny firmly.
“And would you force me to avow myself?” she asked. “May Heaven absolve me if I err herein! No, give me leisure to reflect: this were too sudden. These passion-hurried vows were too much like those vapors, that, igniting, rush like to unorbed stars across the night, then, vanished, leave it blacker. Do not tempt me. To act in haste is to repent at leisure; and quickliest lighted coals grow soonest cool. Even now I feel my cheek aglow with shame, that burns its passage to my rooted hair. Away: if you should not forget me, why, you are as though you were still present; for your thought, which is your truest self, remains with me. If you should grow oblivious—why, it is I that shall suffer, and not you.”
“Oh, waste of words on what can never be!” Exclaimed Montigny: “cease to doubt me. Forget you! Love's memories are immortal. Love writes the lineaments of the beloved in rock, not sand.”
“Yet rocks may lose their effigies, the pyramids their inscriptions, the strong-clamped monument may tumble, and the marble bust, by time, may let the salient features fall into one indistinguishable round,” she answered doubtingly.
“They may;” rejoined Montigny: “but neither flowing time nor chafing circumstance can erase affection from the constant mind. Mind is more obdurate than steel; and love, the tenderest of the train of passions, is, in its memory, as indestructible as gold;—gold that resists the all-corroding fire. No; the fire may melt the impress from the seal, the sun the angles from the stony ice; the jagged rocks may from encounter with the wind and rain grow smooth; this hilly globe may grow at length to be as level as is the sea, and every jutting headland of the shore may crumble and disappear; but your bright image must to the eventide of life's cogitation, stay, like a sacred peak whose lofty brow stands ever gilded in the setting sun. Forget you! little hazard: he whose heart is impressed with the absent's form, needs wear no miniature upon the breast; the scholar who knows his task by rote, needs not retain his eye upon the book.”
“Hearts may prove false,” she answered solemnly, “and tasks to treacherous memory committed may be forgotten; but will you forget these weighty words: will you be constant, oh, will you prove true; for did I give you all I have, my love, what were there left me should you throw it away?”
“Injurious and incredulous one,” returned Montigny, “save Lucifer, who ever threw from him heaven?”
“Forgive me,” she replied, “it is but a timid girl that speaks. She did not doubt you, though she sought to prove you. Yet are you sure you love her? Ask your heart, then render me its reply, as one might do, who having listened for me to the murmuring shell, should bring me tidings of the storm-vexed sea. Vow not, but listen.”
Montigny seemed for awhile to listen to his heart; then, looking at her, replied: