Neither did he do the daughter of the barbarian chief the injustice of breathing the tale of her unhappy love, without adding every pure and noble trait which had shone out in her conduct; and Ildica, who had listened with a beating heart but not a doubting mind, pressed her eyes, in which were some tears, upon Theodore's bosom, saying, "Poor girl, I am sorry for her! I wonder not at her loving you, Theodore. It is but too natural she should; and oh, I am sure that her love for one so much above any being that she ever saw before will last, unhappily for herself, through all her life. She will compare every one with you, and every one will fall short. I am sorry for her, beloved; and yet, Theodore, yet I could not share your love with any one; I could not part with the smallest portion of that treasure for a world. See how selfish and miserly I have become!"
"None can ever take the slightest portion from thee, my Ildica," replied Theodore; "from infancy to death there shall be but one image which shall fill my heart. But to do poor Neva justice, she seeks not to rob my Ildica of that which is Ildica's own. She would not share in a heart that is given to another, Ildica, even if she could; and as, from all that has passed from her father's hatred towards me, and the injuries he has done me, it is impossible that Neva and I should ever meet again, I trust that she will forget feelings which were suddenly raised, checked almost in their birth, and have no food on which to feed and prolong their existence--I trust she will forget--"
"Never, Theodore! never!" cried Ildica; "such feelings are not to be forgotten. She will see none like you; but, even if she did, she would fancy none she saw your equal. The memory of having saved you from death, too, will perpetuate her love--ay, the memory of that action, and the memory of her love, will go down together with her to the tomb, embalming and preserving each other."
"I trust not, my Ildica, I trust not," he replied.
"Oh, Theodore," she answered, "were I absent from you for long years, separated from you even by impassable barriers, would you love me less? could you forget our love?"
"No, certainly not," replied Theodore; "but our love is mutual and full of mutual hopes. Her love is hopeless and unreturned; and I trust she will forget it."
"Such may be the case with man," answered Ildica. "Hopeless and unreturned, his love may, perhaps, seek another object. Woman loves but once, and never forgets, my Theodore. My heart tells it me even now; and though in such things I have, of course, but little skill, yet I feel and know that time, absence, despair itself, could never make me forget my love for thee. The time must come when remembrance shall be extinguished in the grave, and the fine lines traced by the diamond style of love on the tablets of the spirit may be hidden for a while beneath the dust of the tomb; but to that cold dwelling-house shall the unfaded recollection go down with me; and when I waken again from the sleep of death, the memory of my love shall waken with me--I feel--I know it will;" and, as she spoke, she raised her eyes to heaven, while the rays of the morning light danced in their liquid lustre, as if they, too, were of kindred with the sky.
Theodore pressed her to his heart, and long and sweet was the communion that followed; but we cannot, we will not further dwell upon things that those who have loved truly will understand without our telling, and that those who have never so loved cannot comprehend at all. Let them be sacred! those holy feelings of the pure and high-toned heart; those sweet, ennobling emotions of the unpolluted soul. Let them be sacred! those sensations, intense yet timid, pure and unalloyable as the diamond, as firm, as bright, as unspotted; but which, like a precious jewel that baser minds would ever fain take from us, are wisely concealed by those who possess them from the gaze of the low and the unfeeling. We seek not to display--we would not if we could--all the finer shades, the tenderer emotions, of the love of Theodore and Ildica. We have raised the veil enough to show how they did love, and we will raise it no further.
The days of his stay passed in visions of happiness to Ildica and himself, a long, dreamy lapse of exquisite delight. Beyond each other, and the few dear beings around them, what was the world to them I The limits of that valley were the limits of their thoughts; and, whether they sailed on the bosom of the lake, or climbed the giant mountains round about, or wandered through the rustling woods, or sat upon the shore and watched the tiny billows of that miniature sea, the thoughts of the two lovers were only of each other, though the lovely scene, mountain, and stream, and woods, and lakes, and meadows, mingled insensibly with their own dream of happiness, heightened the colouring of their hopes, and, in return, received a brighter hue itself. Sweet, oh, how sweet! were the hours, and yet how rapidly they flew; till at length, when they rose one morning and gazed forth, a wreath of snow was seen hanging upon the peaks of the mountains--not alone upon those higher summits, on whose everlasting ice the summer sun shone vainly through his longest, brightest hours, but on those lower hills which the day before had risen up in the brown veil of the autumnal forest, or the green covering of grass, or the gray nakedness of the native stone. It was the signal for Theodore to depart; and then came the hours, ere he set out, of melancholy and of gloom.
Those hours, however, were broken by many a long and anxious consultation. The offered hospitality and protection of Valentinian had yet to be considered, for it was a proposal which, if even not accepted at once, both Theodore and Flavia judged might prove of great utility at an after period. No one could tell either what changes might take place in the positions of the barbarian nations, or what might be the final result of the victories and successes of Attila himself. Where he might next turn his arms was a question which none even of his own court could solve; and while it was evident to all that a victorious and devastating excursion against the Eastern empire was by no means the ulterior purpose of his powerful and ambitious mind, yet no one could divine what was the end proposed, or whither the pursuit might lead. Under these circumstances, to have a place of refuge open against the storm of war was always a blessing; and Theodore strongly counselled Flavia to despatch messengers to the emperor, charged with thanks, and such presents as circumstances permitted her to send; not exactly accepting the offer of asylum he had made, but expressing a purpose of taking advantage thereof at no very distant period.