Whoever has been accustomed to analyze his own feelings, will at once foresee that Cecil, after coming to the determination that he had acted with consummate folly in making the assignation, now began to get uneasy at the idea of her not keeping it. Obstacles irritate desires. If "the course of true love" does not "run smooth," so much the deeper will it run. Cecil, willing enough to blame himself for his rashness, now began to feel piqued at her indifference. Ten minutes before, the sight of her coming from the house would have been painful; now he was irritated by her absence. He was several times on the point of sulkily going back to the drawing-room; but the thought "if she should come" arrested him.
She came at last, and his heart leapt as he beheld her.
"Have I kept you long?" she asked.
"Every minute away from you is an hour. But you are with me now," he replied, as he folded her to his breast and kissed her burning lips.
Having expressed what was in their hearts by this long eloquent embrace, he twined his arm around her waist, clasping her hand in his, walked slowly with her to the river-side.
While they are thus lovingly employed, I wish to make one remark on the superiority of actions to words. Here were two lovers morally certain of each other's affection, but wanting the confirmation of an oath. They met for the express purpose of saying, in good set terms, that which only wanted the ratification of words; and instead of saying anything on the subject they allowed a kiss—and very eloquent such kisses are—to settle the matter. What could they have said which would have so well expressed it?
Although they walked down to the river, and sat upon the trunk of a fallen tree to admire the shimmer of moonlight upon the gently running stream, and the cool, crisp, delightful sound of the water as it dashed over the huge stones that formed a weir, and then fell over in guise of a little waterfall, they made no allusion to the "important communication" which had drawn them both out. They had too much to talk about. They had to confess when it was their love began, and to vow that it would never end. They had the most charming confidences to make respecting what had been done and said by each, and what each had felt thereat; confidences which, though full of "eloquent music" to them, may very well be spared here.
Nor did they much admire the river by moonlight, in spite of its brilliant tracks of light, and dusky patches of shade thrown from the overhanging trees; hand clasped in hand, they looked into each other's eyes, from which no landscape in the world could have seduced them.
Oh, what exquisite bliss was crowded into that brief hour! How their pulses throbbed, and their hearts bounded! How their souls looked from out their eyes as if to plunge into an indissoluble union! A strange fire burnt in their veins, and made them almost faint with pleasure too intense for mortal endurance. He crushed her hand in his with almost savage fury, and she returned the pressure.
Love! divine delirium, exquisite pain! rich as thou art in rapture, potent as thou art o'er the witcheries of moments which reveal to mortal sense some glimpses of immortal bliss, thou hast no such second moment as that which succeeds the first avowal of two passionate natures. Other joys thou hast in store, but no repetition of this one thrilling ecstacy.