"And who are they who turn against you?" cried Gabrielle, with a burst of indignation. "The very men for whom you have toiled, for whom you have sacrificed all. Oh, the base ingratitude!"
"Ingratitude! Have I the right to look for gratitude at their hands?" asked Raven, with quiet, bitter meaning. "No bond of confidence has existed between us. They had need of me to work out their plans, and I had need of them as stepping-stones by which to mount. It has been one continual state of warfare, a perpetual balancing of our respective strength. I have often let them feel the power of the hated parvenu; now that the power is in their hands, they overturn me--I could expect nothing else; but I feel now that Rudolph was right. It is worth something to have kept one's faith in one's self, in the better, higher part of one's nature. The man who stands and falls by his principles can endure reverses; but he who has given the best energies of his life to a cause which was never his at heart, which in his inmost soul he must condemn and despise, has no anchor, no stay in the hour of misfortune."
"And I?" asked Gabrielle, reproachfully. "Am I nothing?"
"Ah yes, you, my darling!" cried the Baron, with passionate tenderness. "Your love is the one thing left to me. But for you, I could not have endured this fate."
"Will you be able to endure it?" asked the young girl, apprehensively. "Ah, Arno, I feel as though it will hardly be in my power to reconcile you to a lot which will lack all that really constitutes your life. You will pine and waste away in solitude, even though I share it with you."
"Let us talk no more of this now," said Raven, gently parrying her question. "We will speak of it later on. I have drawn the veil from my past; it was right that you should know both it and me thoroughly. But now we have had enough of these gloomy recollections. They shall no longer come between us and the happiness of this hour."
He drew himself up quickly, as though by an effort he would cast all troubling thoughts from him for awhile. And truly it was very beautiful, this quiet hour in the moonlit garden. The half-stripped trees, the widowed earth, bereft of flowers and perfumes, seemed to win back their long-lost charm in the mystic light which spread its mild glamour over the scene, veiling the ravages caused by the late storms, and investing it with a calm, transcendent beauty.
Dreamily still lay the Castle-garden, and the broad landscape out beyond it. The prospect, indeed, no longer stretched, beaming and definite, in the radiant clearness of a summer day. Now the valley slept half hidden in its shimmering depths. At the foot of the Castle-hill the city lamps burned steadily, and its roofs and towers rose, white and glittering, aloft into the pure night air. The foremost mountain summits stood forth plainly discernible, their jagged peaks detached, as it were, from the dark masses beneath; farther off, the lines grew hazier, softer, and the remoter heights were altogether lost in the blueish nebulous distance. Infinite peace rested on all the woods, the hills, the valleys around, as they lay bathed in the silvery flood. Below in the valleys, on the meadows, through the fields, the rolling mists furled and unfurled themselves, a sparkling gleam here and there betokening a bend in the river. High overhead arched the great vault of heaven in all its starry splendour, while everywhere, over earth and sky, was drawn a thin transparent film, a tissue of mist and moonbeam, toning down the picture, lending to it a soft dream-like enchantment. It was a scene of wondrous beauty, of deep, unutterable calm.
Up here too, in the garden, the curling mists crept over the grass, and here too the fitful moonbeams wove their fantastic imagery. Under their influence the grey moss-grown figures about the Nixies' Well seemed to grow into life, to move to and fro behind their humid screen of falling water. The fountain, struck in full by the chaste stream of light from above, rose and sank again in shining sheets of silver rain. Intermingled with its plash and murmur came those voices which are heard only in the stillness of the night, strange, unfamiliar voices, mysterious as the night itself The wind was hushed. No faintest breeze stirred the air, and yet from time to time a low whisper arose, and was wafted on and on, until, like a breath from spirit-land, it swept by and was gone.
The evening was so mild and clear, one might have dreamed that spring had come again; and, truly, the dream that was now filling Raven's mind was gracious as any May-morning--a late-timed, short-lived dream, no doubt, but concentrating in its brief space all the blessedness which earth can give; so, in passionate heart-stirring words, he swore to the fair young creature he held in his arms, to the woman who had taught him to know both love and happiness. Had any unseen, unsuspected spectator looked on Raven, listened to his impassioned accents, such an one would have understood that this man, despite his years, despite his sternness and reserve, despite all the darker side of his nature, must surely carry off the palm, must win the day against all others where his intenser feelings were engaged, where his heart was set on victory. All the long pent-up ardour and tenderness flamed up in him anew; every word, every look, told of a passion which, in its power and depth, could have fired no youthful breast, a passion such as only a strong man in his maturity could conceive. This Gabrielle felt, as, closely nestling to his side, her head resting on his shoulder, she looked up at him with a happy smile. Those gloomy, distressing forebodings of an hour ago could not hold good before the magic of his voice and presence; and through the music of his words, distinctly audible, came the rippling of the spring, singing on the sweet, monotonous melody to which they had listened in the birth-hour of their love. That land of Eden, which once seemed to lie far off in the glistening distance, away beyond the blue mountains, was not there, but here around them. Paradise had opened, and received them within its gates. It was an hour of pure and perfect bliss, such as comes but once in a life-time, but then outweighs all the joys and sorrows which fill the years from the cradle to the grave.