Pembroke was indeed deeply interested in this intelligence. The simple graces of the lovely Albina had on the first interview touched his heart. Her sufferings at Harrowby, and the sensibility which her ingenuous nature exhibited without affectation or disguise, had left her image on his mind long after they parted. He now gave the reins to his eager imagination, and was the first in the saloon to greet her as his lovely kins-woman.
Sir Robert Somerset welcomed her with the warmth of a parent, and the amiable girl wept in happy gratitude.
During this scene, Miss Beaufort, no longer able to bear the restraint of company nor even the accidental encountering of his eyes whose presence, dear as it was, oppressed and disconcerted her, walked out into the park. Though it was the latter end of October, the weather continued fine. A bright sun tempered the air, and gilded the yellow leaves, which the fresh wind drove before her into a thousand glittering eddies. This was Mary's favorite season. She ever found its solemnity infuse a sacred tenderness into her soul. The rugged form of Care seemed to dissolve under the magic touch of sweet Nature. Forgetful of the world's anxieties, she felt the tranquillizing spirit of soothing melancholy that shades the heart of sorrow with a veil which might well be called the twilight of the mind; and the entranced soul, happy in its dream, half closes its bright eye, reluctant to perceive that such bland repose is pillowed on the shifting clouds.
Such were the reflections of Miss Beaufort, after her disturbed thoughts had tossed themselves, in a sea of doubts, regarding any possible interest she might possess in the breast of Sobieski. She recalled the hours they had passed together; they agitated but did not satisfy her heart. She remembered Pembroke's vehement declaration that Thaddeus loved her; but then it was Pembroke's declaration, not his! and the circumstances in which it had been made were too likely to mislead the wishes of her cousin. And then Sobieski's farewell letter! It was noble—grateful; but where appeared the glowing, soul- pervading sentiment that consumed her life for him? Exhausted by the anguish of this suspense, she resolved to resign her future fate to Providence. Turning her gaze on the lovely objects around, she soon found the genius of the season absorb her wholly. Her cheeks glowed, her eyes became humid, and casting their mild radiance on the fading flowers beneath, she pursued her way through a cloud of fragrance. It was the last breath of the expiring year. Love is full of imagination. Mary easily glided from the earth's departing charms to her own she thought waning beauty; the chord once touched, every note vibrated, and hope and fear, joy and regret, again dispossessed her lately-acquired serenity.
CHAPTER XLVII.
AN AVOWAL.
After some little time, Lady Albina, having missed Miss Beaufort, expressed a wish to walk out in search of her, and the two brothers offered their attendance. But before her ladyship had passed through the first park, she complained of fatigue. Pembroke urged her to enter a shepherd's hut close by, whilst the Count Sobieski would proceed alone in quest of his cousin.
With a beating heart Thaddeus undertook this commission. Hastening along the nearest dell with the lightness of a young hunter, he mounted the heights, descended to the glades, traversed one woody nook and then another, but could see no trace of Miss Beaufort. Supposing she had returned to the house, he was slackening his pace to abandon the search, when he caught a glimpse of her figure as she turned the corner of a thicket leading to a terrace above. In an instant he was at her side, and with his hat in his hand, and a glowing cheek, he repeated his errand.
Mary blushed, faltered, and became strangely alarmed at finding herself alone with him. Though he now stood before her in a quality which she ever believed was his right, the remembrance of what had passed between them in other circumstances confounded and overwhelmed her. When Constantine was poor and unfriended, it seemed a sacred privilege to pity and to love him. When the same Constantine appeared as a man of rank, invested with a splendid fortune and extensive fame, she felt lost—annihilated. The cloud which had obscured, not extinguished, his glory was dispersed. He was that Sobieski whom she had admired unseen; he was that Constantine whom she had loved unknown; he was that Sobieski, that Constantine, whom, seen and known, she now, alas! loved almost to adoration!
Oppressed by the weight of these emotions, she only bowed to what he said, and gathering her cloak from the winds which blew it around her, was hurrying with downward eyes to the stairs of the terrace, when her foot slipped, and she must have fallen, had not Thaddeus caught her in his ready arm. She rose with a blushing face, and the color did not recede when she found that he had not relinquished her hand. Her heart beat violently, her head became giddy, her feet lost their power. Finding that, after a slight attempt to withdraw her hand, he still held it fast, though in a trembling grasp, and nearly overcome by inexplicable distress, she turned away her face to conceal its confusion.