I pressed my lips to her cheek, and felt assured that she—this proud and beautiful girl—was indeed mine, and that she loved me.
Between the high and the closely-clipped hedges of the old garden, we heard footsteps, as Ian and Gabrielle returned to us. I had quite forgot them, and so had Ernestine; but now she started away in confusion.
"I am going," said she; "I must go."
"And shall I not see you again to-night?"
"No; but a-good-night, dear Philip, and pleasant dreams to you," she added, in the old German fashion.
"Dear Ernestine, good-night then, and a thousand blessings attend you; for you have taken a load of my heart, and made me indeed most happy!"
We separated, and, anxious to avoid the intruders, and to muse alone for a time, I sprang over the terrace, where the brass culverins peered through the faded honeysuckle, and from thence I descended to the calm still shore of the Guldborg Sound.
CHAPTER IV.
WINTER QUARTERS—THE SECRET OF GABRIELLE.
Time rolled away; we did not, as Ian expected, go to Fehmarn. Winter stole on, and one day of snow was succeeded by another. The queen and court rode out in sledges, or on horses shod with jagged shoes; our soldiers vegetated like the weeds on the ramparts. The old queen told us endless stories of James VI. and of her daughter's marriage, and went regularly every Sunday to the church of Nyekiöbing, where worship was celebrated after the Lutheran fashion. There was a fine organ. After service, the preacher was wont to come out of the pulpit and enter the choir, where he muttered a prayer, after the fashion of a low mass, which used to make Lieutenant Lumsdaine, who was a stanch Presbyterian, twirl his mustaches, and own (though he thought the organ infinitely preferable to the bagpipe then used in his parish kirk of Invergellie) that Lutheranism, as practised in Denmark, was another name for Catholicism. After service, the queen usually rode back in state, seated upon a pillion behind the Baron Fœyœ.