CHAPTER XV.
“Exalted souls
Have passions in proportion, violent,
Resistless and tormenting: they’re a tax
Imposed by nature in preëminence,
And Fortitude, and Wisdom must support them.”
Lillo.
When Olmedo left his house under such excited feelings, he unconsciously followed the path which led to the grove where Beatriz was, and which he knew to be her favorite retreat. In his present condition of mind, she was the last person his reason would have counselled him to meet, but led by an inward attraction, without seeking the meeting, his steps took him towards where she had just risen from prayer. So distracted, however, was he with his conflicting emotions, that she saw him the first. It was too late to avoid him, which she would not have done had she been able. Conscious of the rectitude of her own desires, and pacified by her late appeal to heaven, she obeyed her impulse and advanced towards him. As he suddenly looked up and saw her within a few steps, a faintness came over him, and he was well nigh falling, but with a great effort recovering himself, he took her hand as frankly as it was offered.
Both were silent. Each felt the crisis of their fate had arrived. Nature, when her mightiest agencies are about to go forth in the hurricane, the earthquake, or the volcanic eruption, is for the moment breathless. So the human soul anticipates its most direful trials by utter stillness.