Gabrielle cast down her eyes without speaking; but in her silence there was an encouragement, and George understood it.
"What brought you to this place?" he repeated, with passionate insistence. "Gabrielle, speak. Did you know I was here?"
"Yes," was the low, but steady answer.
George stood by her now, but as yet he did not even take her hand.
"How am I to interpret that?" he asked, all the old tenderness surging up within him as he searched her face eagerly for his answer. "This is not our first meeting since the day that we became strangers to each other, but I have always read in your eyes that strangers we were to remain. May I, dare I, hope at length to read another verdict in them?"
Yes, those eyes told another tale, as she raised them to him now with frank, sweet entreaty.
"George," said Gabrielle, earnestly, "I gave you great pain once. You know what divided us, what has held us apart for years. I then destroyed all your hopes of happiness. You made no complaint, had no word of reproach for me, and yet it was a hard trial, and you suffered cruelly. I would fain give back some of the lost brightness to your life. Tell me, have I still the power?"
Ah, could she ask? The fervour with which George clasped his beloved to his heart spoke the reply before his lips could frame it. Again his arms were round her; again she listened to his words of love, as she had listened years before. In those early days she had, indeed, known nothing of the keen, surpassing joy she had since tasted, when, folded to Arno's breast, she had, as it were, been lifted to the very pinnacle of human bliss--when, in a few short hours, she had lived through a life-time of felicity--alas! quickly to be plunged into a very abyss of woe, and taught the lesson of life's misery.
Bitter had been the trial through which she had passed; but once again a warm, cheering ray fell on her path, like sunshine. Gabrielle would have been no true woman if it had not gladdened her heart to find herself thus truly, faithfully loved, and it is a well-established truth that happiness bestowed on another brings its reward to the giver!
Without, the landscape lay flooded in sunlight--the broad gleaming lake, the blue mountains in the distance, all sparkling in the noonday beams. Even so before the plighted pair the unclouded future stretched rich in hope and fair in promise, a long series of gladsome, happy days. All around was so sunny and bright and clear--and yet in this hour of her betrothal a shade fell on Gabrielle. Was there magic in the air about her? Faint rumours reached her ears, whispered messages telling of a moonlight night, and borne over from a distance, there came to her the even sound of flowing water, the low rippling murmur of a spring.