Neva, however, seemed to take but little notice of his reply. Continuing, apparently in the same train of thought in which she had begun, "And did you think her very beautiful?" she said--"as beautiful as ever?"
"More so," answered Theodore, "far more so."
Neva smiled. "May you be happy!" she said; "may you be happy! Doubtless the time since I saw you last has been a happy time to you and her, but it has been a terrible time to me and mine. You know that they came and slew my father, even on his couch of rest?" and she fixed her full bright eyes upon him with a look of painful earnestness.
Theodore saw that she waited his answer, and replied, "I heard so, for the first time, three days ago, at Margus."
"Did you not know it before?" she cried, eagerly. "Did no one tell it you? Did you not know that it would be so?"
"Never!" answered Theodore. "How could I guess that so fearful, so terrible a deed was so near its accomplishment?"
"Thank God for that!" she cried; "thank God for that! That is peace and balm indeed. But let us sit down here," she added, pausing at a rocky bank, where a break in the woods snowed the country stretched beneath their feet, and the Tibiscus wandering in the distance--"let us sit down here, and talk over it all. Oh, Theodore! my heart has been sad since I saw you. They came and slew my father in the night, and I knelt at the feet of his terrible brother and begged for his life in vain; and afterward they said that it was for what he had done against you that he was slain. I feared and fancied that you had stirred up Attila against him, and I remembered that I had set you free, and that I--I might thus have had a share in my father's death."
She paused for a moment, terribly agitated; but, ere Theodore could find words to comfort her, she went on rapidly: "But think not," she said, "think not, for one moment, that, even had it been so, I would have wished what I had done undone. I saved the innocent from the cruel death they meditated against him. I saved the good and the innocent, and I had naught to do with the rest. Yet it was terrible, Theodore--oh how terrible!--to think that I had aided to spill my father's blood, by saving him that I love;" and, leaning her head upon his shoulder, she wept long and bitterly.
"Weep not, Neva!" said Theodore, "weep not, my sister! You did but what was generous and noble, and that deed had no share in your father's death. All my own followers but one or two had escaped when I was taken, and they, not I, bore to the ears of the king the tidings of what had happened. I did nothing to provoke him against thy father; but, had I been slain, the wrath of Attila would have been still greater. Weep not, dear Neva!" he continued, as her tears, having once more burst forth, flowed on apace; "weep not!" And, holding her in his arms, he called up every argument to console her. He held her in his arms; he used many a tender and endearing epithet; he even pressed his lips upon her cheek; and yet no feeling but one, pure, noble, and generous, was in his heart at that moment. There was a being that loved him with the most devoted affection which the human heart can feel, clinging to him in her deep distress, weeping on his bosom, pouring out her griefs and apprehensions to his ear; and though he could not return her love as love, yet his heart told him that he would be ungrateful if he felt towards her otherwise than as a brother. The kiss that he pressed upon her cheek was not cold, because it was kindly; and the arms which encircled her held her tenderly, because gratefully: but it was with the embrace of fraternal protection. Shame upon those who cannot comprehend such feelings! That kiss and that embrace seemed but to say, "Neva, you have lost your father, but you have yet one in the world who, if he cannot, if he ought not to feel for you as you feel for him, will protect, will console, will sympathize with you--nay, will love you dearly, tenderly, though with but a brother's love."
Neva felt that it was so. She would have started from his arms with fear had there been aught of passion in their touch; she would have fled from him for ever had there been aught of fire on his lips; but it was all kindly tenderness, and she laid her head upon his shoulder to weep as she would have done upon a brother's.