Finally, he dropped off into a sound slumber, "the world forgetting, by the world forgot."
Was it a dream? It seemed like one; and yet, when the sleeper lazily roused himself, and half raised himself on his elbow, something like the following dialogue fell upon his ear.
It should be noted that by this time the sun had disappeared below the horizon, and the fast gathering twilight was, within the walls of the grotto or hermitage, intensified into a deeper gloom. The voices came through the low archway, and the speakers, whomsoever they might be, had evidently taken up their positions in the outer chamber.
"And now we have come together, we don't part, miss, till I have told you a bit of my mind." The voice of this speaker was firm and strong and rough, though feminine. To whom it belonged, the unintentional listener could only guess. He had heard the same voice, however, in almost equally harsh and loud tones, that same afternoon.
"It is very cruel of you, Elizabeth, to treat me so," was said in reply, by another female speaker, and, as it seemed to John, in piteous remonstrance. At any rate, the tones had a musical softness and pathos which smote upon the listener's heart.
"It isn't cruel," said the first speaker; "it is only straightforward and honest, and that is what I mean to be."
"Such friends as we used to be, Elizabeth," sobbed the second interlocutor.
"And may be again, if you will only be sensible, and give up Walter, as you ought to do."
"I won't, I won't, I won't!" cried the weaker one. "And to think of your wanting me to do this, when you were the first to—to—to make him fall in love with me."
"I didn't do anything of the sort," rejoined the other, promptly; "and if I did," she added with a little inconsistency and self-contradiction, "it was when we were both children, and I did not know any better."