"She loves him," murmured he, letting his head drop upon his breast, "it is certain she loves him."
* * * * *
CHAPTER IV.
FEODOR VON BRENDA.
Elise directed her hasty steps toward the now retired parts of the garden. She longed to be alone. Her soul, agitated by painful emotions, required silence and solitude, in order to settle down again gently to rest and peace. Slowly, and with bowed head, she traversed the dark, silent garden-walks. Her thoughts wandered afar off, and she sought some little comfort, some relief from the privations of the present, in the sweet and blissful recollections of bygone days.
"What can keep him?" asked she of herself; and as she thought of him, her countenance assumed a cheerful, almost happy expression. "He swore to brave every danger, every difficulty, in order to let me hear from him; and now, alas! ten weeks have passed, and no news, no token, from him. My God! is it possible that in all this long time he could have found no opportunity to write to me?—or perhaps his love has not survived the test of separation and silence."
At this thought she stopped, as if stunned, and pressed her hand to her breast. A sharp pain shot through her, and her heart seemed to cease to pulsate. But, in a moment, her countenance brightened up, and she murmured, with a gentle smile, "Oh, to doubt his love were a greater treason than to love my country's enemy. Oh, no! Feodor, my heart does not doubt you; and notwithstanding your silence, I know that your heart answers mine, and that we are forever and inseparably united."
With rapid step and cheerful mind she continued her wandering. She had now arrived at the darkest and most secluded part of the garden. Nothing stirred around her, and there was only heard the rustling of the dark fir-tree moved by the wind, or the melodious note of some bird hidden in the foliage.
The garden, elsewhere so carefully and artistically tended, stretching from the Leipsic Street to the Palisades, which surrounded the town in lieu of a wall at that time, was here overgrown with underwood, protecting the more beautiful parts like a quickset hedge. But this bush was, besides, surrounded by a high wall, running immediately next to the Palisades, and bounding the whole back part of the garden. It was seldom that any one wandered in this neighborhood, and Elise was certain, therefore, that no inquisitive eye could watch her, no treacherous ear listen to her half-whispered words.
She seated herself on a bench under a tree, not far from the wall, and looked up dreamingly and thoughtfully at the patches of blue sky visible through the tree-tops. Her whole soul was sunk in reminiscence. Ah, how often had she sat here, but not alone—not with this painful longing in her heart, but in the fullest contentment of happiness, listening with delighted ear to words spoken by him who sat next to her, holding her hand in his, and gazing on her with looks which made her heart tremble with happiness! Here, on this spot, he had taken leave of her, and since then it had become, as it were, the temple of her recollections, to which she daily made her pilgrimage to offer up her devout, sincere, and ardent prayer of love.