When the next morning I got up and dressed, threw open my window, looked upon the bright summer sky, and saw Edward standing on the gravel walk before the house, my heart beat with that hurried pulse of joy, that tumult of emotion which drowns all thought and all care, as a whirlpool sucks in the straws that float near it.
Edward beckoned to me to join him; he received me with a smile of tenderness, and, pushing back the curls from my face, whispered, "My dark-eyed Ellen!" His words of love sunk into my heart, like the rain of Heaven on the scorched and burning sands of the desert, as I gave utterance to the long-subdued and deeply-tried passion of my soul, prostrate in spirit before him, living in the light of his eyes, and almost longing to die in his presence, and by his hand, ere aught in earth, or in Heaven, should divide us. The wilful, terrified abstraction, that made me repulse every thought connected with the future, and cling with frantic intensity to my happiness while it lasted, gave it a character difficult to describe; and Edward, in the very height of his love, and while carried out of himself by its resistless influence, would sometimes ask me, why there was no peace in my happiness, no repose in my love;—why, when his hand held mine, and my head was resting on his shoulder, I sometimes murmured in a tone of thrilling and passionate emotion, "Let me die here."
"Ask not," I would then reply. "Ask not why some flowers shut their leaves beneath the full blaze of the sun. Ask not why the walls of the Abbey Church tremble, as the full peal of the organ vibrates through the aisles. Ask not why the majesty of a starry night makes me weep, or why the intensity of bliss makes me shudder."
"But I love you, my Ellen," Edward would answer; "I, too, love you with all the powers of my soul. My happiness is intense as yours; and yet, in the very excess of both, there is trust and peace."
"Because," I replied, "because no two characters were ever more dissimilar than ours. A calm and mighty river is not more unlike the torrent which swells with the rain, and ebbs the next day, than your nature is to mine. Do not try to understand me, Edward: I say it in the deepest humility, you cannot fathom the folly and the weakness of my soul; but thus much you may believe, that as the mountain stream, chafe and foam as it may, has but one object and one end, so, the varied impulses and the restless fluctuations of my uneasy spirit tend but to one result—its unlimited love, its boundless devotion, to you."
Edward always seemed touched by the expression of my ardent affection, and responded to it in the tenderest and kindest manner; but it did not always efface from his countenance something of perplexity and regret, which the inequality of my spirits, and of my temper, raised in his mind.
Before we left Hampstead, Mrs. Middleton told the Moores of my engagement; and Rosa, who had for some days past guessed at the state of things, wished me joy, with the greatest warmth and animation; but she unconsciously threw a bitter ingredient into her congratulations, by adding to them with a smile, "It is strange how disobedient you have ventured to be to the invisible men of Brandon. I hope you do not reckon on being punished, as well as threatened, by proxy?"
CHAPTER XVII.
"Too high, too grave, too largo, too deep,
Her love could neither laugh nor sleep,
And thus it tired him: his desire
Was for a less consuming fire.
He wished that she should love him well.
Not wildly; wished her passion's spell
To charm her heart, but leave her fancy free;
To quicken converse, not to quell.
He granted her to sigh, for so could he;
But when she wept, why should it be?
'T was irksome, for it stole away
The joy of his love holiday."