'No—no, Nicola!' said I, pressing her to my heart, as the tenderness and ingenuity of this admission, with the plaintive softness of her voice, touched me inexpressibly; 'you shall never succeed in being so cruel as to forget the pleasant days of our companionship, and the love we have avowed.'
'It may be so.'
Then there ensued a long pause, and we continued to sit in darkness and silence, hand-in-hand, our hearts and lips united as our thoughts; until at last, overcome by agitation and fatigue, Nicola feel asleep—asleep upon my breast!
Such a strange thing it is, this love.
I had met Nicola, and left her; met her again and again, to leave her, without other thought than that she was beautiful; she had been nothing to me then; but from the time that love began to spread its halo round her, she seemed as necessary to me as the air or the sunshine, yea, as life itself. We seemed now to have but one existence, and the marvel to me became, how had I lived, and breathed, and spent so many years without her; and without discovering that her place in the world of my heart had been vacant. It is very mysterious all this; but every lover has the same idea, or he is no lover at all.
My whole being seemed now inspired by a new joy; and I no longer remembered how time had passed with me before this fountain of passion had welled up within our souls with the first kiss we exchanged in that dark cavern, which, with all its attendant terrors, had so suddenly brought our emotions to a crisis: and so passed our night in the old haunted forest of king Charles VIII.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
WHAT HAPPENED AFTER.
With night and darkness the storm passed away, and, when morning broke, no trace of it remained but the torn and twisted branches, the thunder-riven oak, and the diamond-like dew, that dropped from every leaf, and bowed the laden grass. Nicola awoke refreshed, but I was pale, weary, and excited: the livelong night I had not slept, having sat by the side of my companion, watching and half-supporting her, full of happiness, and of many thoughts, some of which made me anxious enough at times. But I kissed the sleeping eyes of Nicola, and forgetting all but that she loved me, I proceeded to groom and re-saddle our poor nags, which had borne the terrors and discomfort of the past night with all the equanimity of old troop-horses.
Flocks of those little birds of the woodcock species, known in France as chevaliers aux pied verts, were fluttering about in the misty swamps and little tarns formed by the torrents of rain that had fallen overnight; the startled hares and rabbits bounded from among the wet leaves, and fled before us as we mounted and set forth from our comfortless billet; and steering through the forest by the direction of the sunbeams, sought once more the way which led towards Lorraine.