CHAPTER LXXIV.
THE MEETING.
WHEN Isabella retired to her chamber the second time, she hastily put on her bonnet and shawl, and then hurried to the garden at the back of the mansion; for she felt the necessity of fresh air, to cool her burning brow.
She walked slowly up and down for a few minutes, her mind filled with the most distressing thoughts, when the sounds of voices fell upon her ears. She listened; and the consequential tone of the hussar-captain, alternating with the childish lisp of Sir Cherry Bounce, warned her that the two young coxcombs had also directed their steps towards the garden.
She felt in no humour to listen to their chattering gossip—wearisome at all times, but intolerable in a moment of mental affliction; still she could not return to the house without encountering them in her way. A thought struck her—the gardener had been at work all the morning; and the back-gate of the enclosure had been left open for his convenience. Perhaps it was not locked again? Thither did she hurry; and, to her joy, the means of egress into the fields were open to her.
The delicate foot of that beauteous creature of seventeen scarcely made an impression upon the grass, nor even crushed the daisy, so light was her tread! And yet her heart was heavy. Grief sate upon her brow; and her bosom was agitated with sighs.
She walked onward; and, turning the angle of a grove, was now beyond the view of any one in her father's garden. She relaxed her speed, and moved slowly and mournfully along the outskirts of the grove, vainly endeavouring to conquer the sorrowful ideas that obtruded themselves on her imagination.
But Woe is an enemy that knows no remorse, gives no quarter, while it retains poor mortal in its grasp; and when its victim is a young and innocent girl, whose heart beats with its first, its virgin love,—that direful enemy augments its pangs in proportion to the tenderness and sensibility of that heart which it thus ruthlessly torments.
Isabella's reverie was suddenly interrupted by a deep sigh.
She turned her head; and there, on her left hand—seated upon the trunk of a tree that had been blown down by the late winds,—with his face buried in his hands, was a gentleman apparently absorbed in reflections of no pleasurable nature.
He sighed deeply, and his lips murmured some words, the sound of which, but not the meaning, met her ears.