"My first, my last, my only one!" said the Earl, encircling her gently with his arms, and pressing her forehead against his cheek; and, though this assertion was not strictly true, in the ardour of the moment he almost believed it so. "Until the moment we parted at Frederick's palace gate—parted as I thought to meet no more—I knew not how deep was my unavowed love for thee. Hear me, Anna, dear Anna! I love thee with my heart of hearts—my whole soul! My name, my coronet, all I possess, are at thy feet; say, dear one, canst thou love me?"
Borne away by the ardour of his passion, he brought out this avowal all at a breath—"for," sayeth the Magister Absalom, "he had repeated it, on similar occasions, twenty times"—and, pressing her to his heart, slipped upon her finger a very valuable ring.
"Canst thou love me, Anna," he continued in a broken voice, "as I love thee—as my bride, my wife? and"——Anna replied an inaudible something, as she hung half-fainting with confusion on his breast.
Bothwell had almost paused as he spoke, half scared by his own impetuosity, and feeling, even in that moment of transport, a pang, as the thoughts of ambition and the world arose before him.
And the ring!
By the false Earl, the fond giver of that little emblem of love was forgotten. On the inside was engraved—
"The gift and the giver,
Are thine for-ever."
It was the pledge of betrothal from Jane Gordon of Huntly, and now it sparkled on the hand of her rival!
"As this circlet is without end, so without end will be my love for thee, Anna," said the impassioned noble, forgetting that with these very words, for that ring he had given another, before the prelate of Dunblane. Anna trembled violently; she felt his heart beating against her own, and a new, rapid, and consuming sensation thrilled like lightning through every vein and fibre. She became giddy, faint; and, like a rose surcharged with dew, reclined her head upon the shoulder of the handsome Earl.
"And thou art mine, Anna—mine, for ever!"