Louisa sat beside me, and, save her, Cora and all the world were alike forgotten.
CHAPTER XIII.
Forget thee? If to dream by night, and muse on thee by day;
If all the worship, deep and wild, a poet's heart can pay;
If prayers in absence, breathed for thee to Heaven's protecting power;
If winged thoughts that flit to thee, a thousand in an hour;
If busy Fancy, blending thee with all my future lot;
If this thou call'st forgetting, thou, indeed, shall be forgot.
MOULTRIE.
I had but one, only one, meeting more with Lady Louisa, and it was, indeed, a sad one. We could but hope to meet again—near Canterbury, perhaps—at some vague period before my regiment marched; and prior to that I was to write to her, on some polite pretence, under cover to Cora.
This was certainly somewhat undefined and unsatisfactory for two engaged lovers, especially for two so ardent as we were, and in the first flush of a grand passion; but we had no other arrangement to make; and never shall I forget our last, long, mute embrace on the last evening, when, scared by footsteps on the garden walk, we literally tore ourselves away, and separated to meet at the dinner-table, and act as those who were almost strangers to each other, and to perform the mere formalities, the politenesses, and cold ceremonies of well-bred life.
I could not help telling my good uncle of my success; but under a solemn promise of secrecy, for a time at least.
"All right, boy," said he, clapping me on the shoulder. "Keep her well in hand, and I'll back you against the field to any amount that is possible; but that gouty old peer, my Lord Slubber, is richer than I am; and then Lady Chillingham has the pride of Lucifer. Draw on me whenever you want money, Newton. Since Archie died at college, and poor Nigel at the battle of Goojerat, I have no boy to look after but you."
The last hour came inexorably. We shook hands with all. When that solemn snob, my brother officer, Mr. de Warr Berkeley, and I entered the carriage which was to take us to the nearest railway station, there were symptoms of considerable emotion in the faces of the kind circle we were leaving, for the clouds of war had darkened fast in the East during the month we had spent so pleasantly; and the ladies—the poor girls especially—half viewed us as foredoomed men.
Louisa was as pale as death; she trembled with suppressed emotion, and her eyes were full of tears. Even her cold and stately mother kissed me lightly on the cheek; and at that moment, for Louisa's sake, I felt my heart swell with sudden emotion of regard for her.
My uncle's hard but manly, hand gave mine a hearty pressure, and he kindly shook the hand of Willie Pitblado, who was bidding adieu to his father, the old keeper, and slipped a couple of sovereigns into it.