"Is he here?" I said, almost beside myself with the fearful hope her words awoke.
"Yea," she said. "Since three days he is here."
For a moment I neither spoke nor moved.
"How comes it about? how doth it happen?" I began to say; but a passion of tears choked my utterance. I fell into her arms, sobbing on her breast; for verily I had no power to restrain myself. I heard her say, "Master Rookwood, come in." Then, after those sad long weary years, I again heard his cheerful voice; then I saw his kind eyes speaking what words could never have uttered, or one-half so well expressed. Then I felt the happiness which is most like, I ween, of any on earth to that of heaven: after long parting, to meet again one intensely loved—each heart overflowing with an unspoken joy and with an unbounded thankfulness to God. Amazement did so fill me at this unlooked-for good, that I seemed content for a while to think of it as of a dream, and only feared to be awoke. But oh, with how many sweet tears of gratitude—with what bursts of wonder and admiration—I soon learnt how Lady Arundel had formed this kind plot, to which Muriel had been privy, for to bring together parted lovers, and procure to others the happiness she so often lacked herself—the company of the most loved person in the world. She had herself written to Basil, and related the cause of my apparent change; a cause, she said, at no time sufficient for to warrant a desperate action, and even then passing away. But that had it forever endured, she was of opinion his was a love would survive any such accident as touched only the exterior, when all else was unimpaired. She added, that when Mr. Congleton, who was then at the point of death, should have expired, and Muriel gone beyond seas to fulfil her religious intent, she would use all the persuasion in her power to bring me to reside with her, which was the thing she most desired in the world; and that if he should think it possible under another name for to cross the seas and land at some port in Sussex, he should be the welcomest guest imaginable at Arundel Castle, if even, like St. Alexis, he should hide his nobility under the garb of rags, and come thither begging on foot; but yet she hoped, for his sake, it should not so happen, albeit nothing could be more honorable if the cause was a good one. It needed no more inducement than what this letter contained for to move Basil to attempt this secret return. He took the name of Martingale, and procured a passage in a small trading craft, which landed him at the port of a small town named Littlehampton, about three or four miles from Arundel. Thence he walked to the castle, where the countess feigned him to be a leech sent by my lord to prescribe remedies for a pain in her head, which she was oftentimes afflicted with, and as such entertained him in the eyes of strangers as long as he continued there, which did often move us to great merriment; for some of the neighbors which she was forced to see, would sometimes ask for to consult the countess's physician; and to avoid misdoubts, Basil once or twice made up some innocent compounds, which an old gentleman and a maiden lady in the town vowed had cured them, the one of a fit of the gout, and the other of a very sharp disorder in her stomach. But to return to the blissful first day of our meeting, one of the happiest I had yet known; for a paramount affection doth so engross the heart, that other sorrows vanish in its presence like dewdrops in the sunshine. I can never forget the smallest particle of its many joys. The long talk between Basil and me, first in Lady Arundel's chamber, and then in the gallery of the castle, walking up and down, and when I was tired, I sitting and he standing by the window which looked on the fair valley and silvery river Arun, running toward the sea, through pleasant pastures, with woody slopes on both sides, a fair and a peaceful scene; fair and peaceful as the prospect Basil unfolded to me that day, if we could but once in safety cross the seas; for his debtors had remitted to him in France the moneys which they owed him, and he had purchased a cottage in a very commodious village near the town of Boulogne-sur-Mer, with an apple-orchard and a garden stored with gay flowers and beehives, and a meadow with two large walnut-trees in it. "And then bethink thee," he added, "mine own dear love, that right in front of this fine mansion doth stand the parish church, where God is worshipped in a Catholic manner in peace and freedom; and nothing greater or more weighty need, methinks, to be said in its praise."
I said I thought so too, and that the picture he drew of it liked me well.
"But," quoth Basil suddenly, "I must tell thee, sweetheart, I liked not well thy behavior touching thine altered face, and the misleading letter thou didst send me at that time. No!" he exclaimed with great vehemency, "it mislikes me sorely that thou shouldst have doubted my love and faith, and dealt with me so injuriously. If I was now by some accident disfigured, I must by that same token expect thine affection for me should decay."
"O Basil!" I cried, "that would be an impossible thing!"
"Wherefore impossible?" he replied; "you thought such a change possible in me?"
"Because," I said, smiling, "women are the most constant creatures in the world, and not fickle like unto men, or so careful of a good complexion in others, or a fine set of features."
"Tut, tut!" he cried, "I do admire that thou shouldst dare to utter so great a . . . ." then he stopped, and, laughing, added, "the last half of Raleigh's name, as the queen's bad riddle doth make it." [Footnote 5]