The young girl shook her head with a faint negative gesture.
"No, no; you are mistaken. There is no question of that. Since the day he made known to me his decision as final and irrevocable, my guardian has never mentioned your name; and he has obliged mamma to be silent too, to cease the storm of reproaches with which she assailed me at first; but he just overlooks me, passes me by with frigid indifference, and I.... Oh, George, is not it possible for you to stay near me?"
"I cannot," said George, with difficulty restraining his own deep emotion. "I must obey the call--it is quite impossible for me to resist it. Under other circumstances, I should have hailed this change with joy. It opens to me far brighter prospects than any I could have hoped for here in R----, where the immense ascendency exercised on all sides by the Baron keeps down individual effort, and stifles independent thought; but I know only too well that this so-called promotion has but one end in view: to defraud me of my highest, my best possession, to rob me of your love, and to part us for ever. Your guardian has summoned to his aid two mighty allies--time and distance. Perhaps they may help him to the victory yet."
"Never!" exclaimed Gabrielle, passionately. "The victory shall never be his. I have given you a promise, and I will keep my word."
George did not notice the anxious distress which again involuntarily betrayed itself in her tone. He only heard the resolute words, the unwonted assertion of will; and, in spite of the parting now so imminent, a ray of happiness illumined his features. He had so feared he might find his love as childishly careless and indifferent to the separation as on that former occasion when she had seemed in no way to enter into or comprehend his grief. What joy to see that she too was moved by the news of his departure, that she strove earnestly, eagerly, to keep him near her! The spontaneous promise she now gave him filled him with a delight he had never before experienced. Almost mastered by his emotion, he stooped and kissed her hand.
"I thank you, my love," he said fervently; "but you are strangely changed since last we met. Where is my Gabrielle's sunny brightness, the smile which was ever ready to chase the tears from her eyes? You said to me once in jest. 'You do not know me thoroughly yet;' and, truly, I did not do you full justice then. The present moment brings that home to me."
The young girl remained silent. Her rosy lips had, indeed, lost their trick of smiling. They seemed to close firmly upon, and keep down, some secret sorrow which was not to find utterance in words.
"Forgive me, if I failed to read you aright," continued George, with ever-increasing tenderness; "I acknowledge it, I have had my doubts. I have looked forward with fear and trembling to the inevitable collision with your family. Now I see that you too can feel profoundly, now I believe in you fully and completely; I believe that you will be constant in your love, even though a Baron von Raven, armed with all his high authority, should do his best to come between us."
Gabrielle started at these last words, and raised her downcast eyes to his face. The look was one George could not decipher--a look of mingled anxiety, pain, and touching appeal; but next moment all this was drowned in a rush of tears which could no longer be withheld.
"My poor Gabrielle!" whispered the young man, bending over her; "you are so little used to care and trouble; and to think that it should be my fate, mine! to bring them on you. But we were prepared, you know, to make a fight for our love. Now the time for the struggle has come. We must endure and conquer. Perhaps Herr von Raven may one day repent having played Providence in this manner. He is sending out one more enemy into the world, and not so insignificant a one as he supposes."