Thereupon he strode to the threshold, and assuming an air of majesty they had never before remarked, he waved them in silence from the apartment.
No sooner had they all quitted the room, than Eudæmon drew the bolt across the door, and approaching the Queen, who hung weeping over her lifeless daughter, he thus sternly addressed her:—
"You have neglected my warning, and by your heedless words have awakened a fresh struggle in the breast of this sorely tried child. There remains but one chance of recalling her gentle spirit from the Valley of the Shadow of Death. But be assured, proud Queen, that though, for the sake of the Princess herself, I now lay bare before you the inmost secret of my heart; yet she shall never know, until she hears the truth from your lips, that for her alone that heart shall beat through time and through eternity."
So saying, the young Enchanter drew near Miranda's prostrate form. He threw himself on the floor beside her couch, and seizing her resistless hands, wildly pressed them in his own. Tenderly and reverently he addressed the insensible maiden in tones and words of fondest endearment. For long it seemed as though even the electric thrill of mortal love was powerless against the magic swoon into which the Princess had fallen on hearing for the first time her mother's strange accusing words.
At last Eudæmon (who held her hand in his as he fervently prayed for her restoration to life) fancied he perceived a feeble movement. He arose, and earnestly imprinting on his memory those features so sacred to him in their helpless repose, he retired to the window and there continued his prayer.
Meanwhile Miranda, quivering back to consciousness, imagined she heard a familiar voice addressing her in the wild tones of a passionate love hitherto unknown. A strange new pain shot into her innocent soul, and awoke her once more to play her part in this world's theatre.
She slowly opened her eyes, and looked around. By the light of the feeble lamp she gradually became aware of Eudæmon's presence, as he knelt near the open casement, through which faintly glimmered the first signs of approaching dawn. She stirred uneasily on her couch. The Enchanter arose from his answered prayer. Stepping across the chamber, he opened the door to the impatient watchers without. Before Queen Margaret could recover from her astonishment, or could indeed realize that her child was safe, Eudæmon was gone. He went out silently as the others entered. Calling Luachan, he departed thence with his faithful dog, to seek amid the solitudes of nature that peace which at present was denied him by his wildly throbbing bosom.
Many days elapsed before the Princess, shaken and confused by all she had gone through, again descended the stairs and approached once more the fated harp. From the moment in which her feelings had found vent in song, and escaping from the hall she had sought relief from tears in her lonely chamber, all seemed like a dream. Her mother's reproaches on discovering her strange agitation, her deep swoon, and the words she thought she had heard as she woke, each and all were regarded by her as the creatures of her own too vivid imagination.
Queen Margaret, already forgetting her renewed promises, and fondly caressing her child, never recurred to the past. The Enchanter, entering as before with energy into all that concerned Miranda's interests, looked and moved to the awe-struck eyes of the simple Princess an exalted being, free from the weaknesses or restless anxieties of mortal love.
Miranda's new power gave them all exquisite pleasure. She herself found rich stores of unimagined delight, as she poured forth her growing aspirations in floods of song. Strange to say, it was in singing alone that she gave utterance to her feelings. No spoken word as yet could pass the enchanted barrier of her lips.