"Stay, I prithee, but within hearing," said Eleanor. "I like not the aspect of this place. If I call, hasten instantly to my succour."
The miller promised, but with a secret determination not to risk his carcase again for all the bright-eyed dames in Christendom.
She listened to his departing footsteps, and her heart seemed to lose its support. An indescribable feeling crept upon her—a consciousness that another was present in this solitude. She was evidently under the control of some invisible agent; the very freedom of her thoughts oppressed and overruled by a power superior to her own. She strove to escape this thraldom, but in vain. She threw round an apprehensive glance, but all was still—the dripping boughs alone breaking the almost insupportable silence that surrounded her. Suddenly she heard a sigh, and a rustling at her ear; and she felt an icy chillness breathing on her. Then a voice, musical but sad, whispered—
"Thou hast rejected my suit. Another holds thy pledge."
"Another! Who art thou?" said the maiden, forgetting her fears in the first emotion of surprise.
"Thou hast been conscious of my presence in thy dreams!" replied the mysterious visitor. She felt her terrors dissipated, for the being whom she loved was the guardian of her safety.
"I have loved thee, maiden," said the voice; "I have hovered round thee when thou slept, and thou hast answered my every thought. Wherefore hast thou not obeyed? Why not seal thy compact and our happiness together?"
"Because it was unhallowed," replied she firmly, though her bosom trembled like the leaf fluttering from its stem.
"Another has taken thy pledge. Yet is it not too late. Renew the contract, even with thy blood, and I am thine! Refuse, and thou art his. If this hour pass, I am lost to thee for ever!"
"To whom," inquired Eleanor, "has it been conveyed?"