"I thank you, my dear mother!" cried she, "and you too, Marquis; but after this fit of weakness, I am well enough to go on." "Impossible!" cried the Marchioness, "the fatigue would destroy you."
"No;" replied Marcella, with a wan smile, "I can only be destroyed by finding myself an incumbrance, and I know Ferdinand thinks every moment an age till he arrive at Lindisfarne."
"Not while you are so ill, my kindest sister," replied he, "to-morrow will find you stronger, and six fleet horses will soon make up for the delay."
Louis turned towards the window. It might in the meeting of lovers, who had yet many happy years before them! but an hour, or a moment, might be sufficient to divide him for ever in this life, from the friend of his heart!—Marcella was ill; but she was not dying; and the determination to delay a whole day and a night, struck him with an agony he turned away to conceal. But Marcella caught the look; its whole expression entered her heart, and she took an instant resolution. Perhaps an emotion of resentment; the first she had ever known in herself, at least, the first she had ever acted upon, roused her to extraordinary powers; for she felt that no consideration of her possible peril, could awaken in this devoted, impatient lover, this ungrateful kindless de Montemar, one wish to linger a moment for her sake.
She pressed the arm of Ferdinand and whispered him.
He kissed that soft hand, and immediately withdrew. The Marchioness, suspecting that embassy was to recall the carriage, hastened up to Louis, and whispering him in her turn, begged him to prevail on Marcella, not out of indulgence to her brother's haste to reach Lindisfarne, to run herself into any risk. Before she could receive an answer, she glided out of the room in pursuit of her son, to stop his counter-orders, and to reprove his persisted selfishness.
Louis turned round to utter persuasions so foreign to his heart; but a severe look from Marcella checked him: yet he drew near. She again turned her eyes upon him; but there was an expression of distress in his face which disarmed her resentment; and being sensible to an undefinable sympathy, for whatever might be his motives for this, to her, unfeeling haste, she paused a moment to consider what she should say. A certain spirit of female dignity, that resisted, while it felt too powerfully his influence over her, and something of her usual habit of self-denial, impelled her to rally all her strength at once. And, alike contemning her body's feebleness, and that weakness of heart which had been its origin, she rose into a sitting position on the sofa; and, with every nerve braced, and a lofty, though compassionate air, she interrupted him as he began to speak.
"You are very kind, Marquis, to intend to obey my mother. But I am well, and shall proceed." Louis made an attempt to answer, but again she intercepted his first words; and, rising, rung the bell.
"Tell my mother," said she to the person who entered, "that I am ready to attend her to the carriage."
Louis looked on her with agitation. She observed him, and turned away her head, though with an air of unaffected serenity. Marcella was always serene after any struggle in her soul, when the conquest was gained.