"How beautiful is nature!" exclaimed he, "how unobtruse her loveliness, how guileless all her charms!"
He gently descended the steps of the terrace. All was still. Not a zephyr ruffled the leaf of a rose, and a soft breathing fragrance bathed his reposing senses. He walked on, and thought of the rapt liberty of the soul in the sweet serenities of beautiful solitude. No rebellious feeling of any kind then agitated his placid bosom; every passion was at rest,—his ambition slept in its thorny bed, and his remembrances of Otteline were quenched in the gentle dews of a resigned spirit. Such power has the divine hand of Nature on the son that loves her! and thus did he glide along, with the ethereal temper of his soul beaming in every feature, like the reflected face of heaven.
In this blessed calm, his meditations had ascended far above this sublunary world, when he observed a man spring off the battlements into the garden, from the very quarter where he had once clambered himself. A second glance, recognised the figure of Duke Wharton, who, immediately, hastened towards him. An exulting smile was on his countenance, as he hailed him in his approach.
"This is safer ground than the Horti Adonidis, I fixed for our conference!" cried he, "no envious demon would ever think of tracing Philip Wharton to so desolate a region as this!"
"I have found it a garden of peace," replied Louis, putting out his hand to Wharton with glad surprise; "and, were it not for fear of the consequence of this rash seeking me, I should call it the garden of happiness too!"
"De Montemar," cried his friend, "it does not become friendship like ours, to be always fearing consequences, and skulking past each other, as if our meetings had guilty errands. How different are you in this detested court of finesse, from the free-hearted, independent De Montemar, who won my soul on his unbondaged native mountains! Louis, where is that open eye, that open heart? that fearless, brave, uncuirassed bosom? All that you can gain in Vienna or at Madrid, is not worth one of those proofs of manhood!"
Louis turned on him a countenance, in which all that Wharton had conjured up in that noble soul, shone bright in the moon-light.
"If I have fear, it is to do wrong; and that is no change of my nature. If I shroud my heart, it is from them who cannot understand it; if I shroud my eye, it is from them who are not worthy to read my thoughts; and for my shut bosom, Wharton, would it gratify you, to hear it was unlocked to fools? You have the key of it, my friend! A triangle encases my heart," continued he, with one of his wonted smiles; "and you have one of its sides."
Wharton pressed his hand.
"Then Cæsar has quite forgiven Brutus?"