Even in the midst of her astonished happiness she experienced a shadowy misgiving that it was too good to be real; but she could only reply—
‘You must think very poorly of us all, Chastelâr, if you imagine we could ever forget you.’
‘It is not distance that can separate those who care for each other,’ resumed the poet, dreamily; ‘after all, it is thought that unites soul to soul; that sea-bird’s wing would droop ere he had traversed a thousand miles of ocean, and yet twice the distance separates the lover from his mistress no more than a score of yards and a brick wall. He can be with her in spirit, although his body may be at the uttermost end of the earth. Nevertheless, for all this, Mistress Hamilton, it grieves me sore to bid you farewell.’
She could have listened to him for an hour; she loved to hang on his musical accents, and drink in the tones of his rich, southern voice; above all, were such sentiments as these congenial to her own lofty conceptions of an ideal, and her trusting, clinging heart.
He was pitiless; he went on speaking low and hurriedly—
‘We may not meet again for many, many months—perhaps never in this world. Do you think I am a man of marble that I cannot feel? Do you think mine is a happy lot, thus to leave all I value or esteem and take not even hope with me into exile? Mary Hamilton, you will not refuse me what I ask you on such a day as this?’
‘I would give my life for yours,’ she answered, scarce above her breath. ‘What is it you would have me do?’
‘Listen,’ he replied. ‘I must be in the saddle soon after nightfall. For reasons I cannot explain to you, it must be supposed by the household that I have departed at sun-down. My very life is in danger, if I am known to have remained. I cannot tell you why. Do you trust me?’
She bowed her head.