As if to make the transition more easy, however, she repeated--we may call it sung, for she preserved, though her voice rose scarcely above a murmur, the air of the song--the lines of some long-forgotten poet, which were but too applicable to herself.
"I must not love where I would love,
I must not dwell where I would stay."
"Alas, it is all in vain," she added. "And now to the letter."
Thus saying, she drew forth from her bosom a note, the seal of which had been broken, but of the contents of which she had, as yet, only read the first words. Unfolding it, her eye ran over the lines it contained, and her cheek grew very pale; a look of anxiety and apprehension rose in her countenance; and at length, clasping her hands together, she exclaimed, "The King and all the Court live in daily dread of the plague; but if these rash men did but know how much more I dread the plague of their ambitious designs, they would not surely try to communicate the infection to me by such letters as this. What is to be done with this thing now? If I reveal it, I bring the poor wretch to the block. If I conceal it, I make myself a sharer of their treasons."
She paused and meditated for a moment or two, and then exclaimed aloud, "Oh, that I had some one to advise me!"
The words were scarcely uttered, when there was a step amongst the trees behind; and starting up with a look of alarm, she turned round. The blood rose in her cheek, her eye sparkled, though she would fain have quenched its light, and her voice faltered with emotion, as she exclaimed, "Oh, Seymour! rash, rash young man, your imprudence will be the ruin of yourself and me!"
"Nay, dearest Arabella," he replied, with a gay smile, "neither rash nor imprudent--bold, perhaps, to watch you as you sat here musing; but I claim but the privilege of the sun, who looks at you through the green leaves, even whilst you fancy yourself hidden from his bright eye."
"Nay, but you are rash, William," she answered, "rash to come hither at all."
"I could not help it, Arabella," he said in reply, kissing her hand. "You would not have me a traitor or a rebel?"
"Heaven forbid!" exclaimed Arabella, her imagination immediately connecting his words with the letter she had just been reading. "Oh, William, of all things, if you would not break my heart, avoid all dealings with the many dangerous men who are striving for things impossible. But you are laughing--I have mistaken you. Nay, if you smile so, I shall call back again all my old careless gaiety, which, to say truth, has been somewhat disturbed. If you could not help coming, tell me what brings you?"