Times and times he used to pray for an interview, that I would meet him somewhere—anywhere; but of course I could not yield to any such request, but told him to be content with the replies I gave him to his notes. But still, plan after plan would he propose, and all of them so dreadfully imprudent, and wild, and chivalrous, that nothing could be like it. I know that he would have been a knight or a cavalier had he lived earlier; while as to his looks!—ah, me! I fear that there must be truth in mesmerism, for I felt from the first that he had some terrible power over me, and could—what shall I say?—there, I cannot think of a better simile—turn me, as it were, round his finger; and that is really not an elegant expression. But then, he was so calm, so pensive-looking, and noble, that he might have been taken for one of Byron’s heroes—Lara, or Manfred, or the Giaour. Either or all of these must have been exactly like him; while to find out that I, Laura Bozerne, was the sole object of his worship—Oh! it was thrilling.
I do not know how the time went then, for to me there seemed to be only one measurement, and that was the space between Monsieur Achille’s lessons. As to the scoldings that I was constantly receiving, I did not heed them now in the least; for my being was filled by one sole thought, while the shadowy, reproachful face of Theodore Saint Purre grew more faint day by day. It must have been weeks—I cannot tell; months, perhaps—after my entrance as pupil at the Cedars that I retired on some excuse one afternoon to my dormitory, with a little, sharp, three-cornered note, and tremblingly anxious I tore it open, and read its contents.
And those contents? I would not even hint at them, if it were not that they are so necessary to the progress of my confessions.
He said that he had implored me again and again to meet him, and yet I was relentless and cruel; and now he had come to the determination to wait night by night under the great elm-trees by the side wall, when, even if I would not meet him, he would still have the satisfaction of stilling the beatings of his aching heart by folding his arms about it, leaning against some solitary, rugged trunk, and gazing upon the casket which contained his treasure. I might join him, or I might leave him to his bitter solitude; but there he would be, night after night, as a guardian to watch over my safety.
It was a beautiful note, and no amount of translating could do it justice; for after the glowing French in which it was written, our language seems cold and blank.
What could I do? I could not go, and yet it was impossible to resist the appeal. How could I rest upon my pillow, knowing him to be alone in the garden watching, with weary, waiting eyes, for my coming?—for him to be there hour after hour, till the cold dawn was breaking, and then to turn away, with Tennyson, slightly altered, upon his lips,—
“She cometh not, he said.”
It was too much! I fought as I had fought before, over and over again, thinking of how it would be wicked, wrong, imprudent, unmaidenly. Oh, what dozens of adjectives I did slap my poor face with that afternoon, vowing again and again that I would not heed his note. But it was unbearable; and at last, with flushed cheeks and throbbing pulses, I plunged the note beneath the front of my dress, exclaiming,—
“Come what may, I will be there!”