What did it mean? Was it her natural beauty only, magnified by the force of his imagination, and enhanced by his great love for her?
Somehow Charlie was perplexed and startled by her, amid all the transport and joy of the time.
Suddenly there was a sound of wheels and horses' hoofs without, then of several feet ringing on the hard and frozen churchyard path.
Ernestine started, and exclaimed in a voice husky, as it seemed, with alarm—
'They are coming—my father and that dreadful Baron! I must leave you, beloved Carl—but only for a time; we shall meet again where even they can separate us no more!'
She turned, and flying like a phantom, hurried through the little door by which she had entered the church; and Charlie Pierrepont, feeling certain that their interview had been discovered—that they had come in pursuit of her in ire and indignation, and that there would be a scene which he was most anxious to avoid—looked hastily round the little church for a place of concealment.
There was none; so he resolved to make the best of it, and turned to the doorway just as the portly old Count of Frankenburg, the Baron Grünthal, limping as usual with gout, and Heinrich entered the church together.
CONCLUSION.
They were all in evening costume—that sombre attire in which the modern gentleman may attend a funeral by day, and a ball by night, without change; and they all looked pale, harassed, and grave.