At this, starting up with eyes suffused with tears but beaming immortal love, she hastily replied — "Part!"
"Yes!" continued he, "part! for ever part!"
"No, Marion, no! never! never!"
"Ah! can you, Louisa, leave father and mother, and follow a poor banished husband like me?"
"Yes — yes — father, mother, and all the world will I leave to follow thee, Marion!"
"O blessed priest, I thank you! Good bishop Rochelle, holy father in God,
I thank you — your persecution has enriched me above princes.
It has discovered to me a mine of love in Louisa's soul,
that I never dreamed of before."
"My dearest Gabriel, did you ever doubt my love?"
"Pardon me, my love, I never doubted your love, Oh no! I knew you loved me. The circumstances under which you married me gave me delicious proof of that. To have preferred me to so many wealthier wooers — to have taken me as a husband to the paradise of your arms, when so many others would have sent me as a heretic to the purgatory of the inquisition, was evidence of love never to be forgotten; but that in addition to all this you should now be so ready to leave father and mother, country and kin, to follow me, a poor wanderer in the earth, without even a place where to lay my head ——"
"Yes, yes," replied she, eagerly interrupting him, "that's the very reason I would leave all to follow you. For, oh my love! how could I enjoy father or mother, country or kin, and you a wanderer in the earth, without a place whereon to lay your head! That single thought would cover my days with darkness, and drive me to distraction. But give me your company, my Gabriel, and then welcome that foreign land with all its shady forests! Welcome the thatched cottage and the little garden filled with the fruits of our own fondly mingled toils! Methinks, my love, I already see that distant sun rising with gladsome beams on our dew-spangled flowers. I hear the wild wood-birds pouring their sprightly carols on the sweet-scented morning. My heart leaps with joy to their songs. Then, O my husband! if we must go, let us go without a sigh. God can order it for our good. And, on my account, you shall cast no lingering look behind. I am ready to follow you wherever you go. Your God shall be my God. Where you live I will live, and where you die, there will I die, and will be buried by your side. Nothing my beloved, but death, shall ever part me from you."
"Angelic Louisa!" cried Marion, snatching her to his bosom in transports — "Wondrous woman! what do I not owe to God, ever blessed, for such a comforter! I came just now from Rochelle with the load of a mountain on my heart. You have taken off that mountain, and substituted a joy most lightsome and heavenly. Like a ministering angel, you have confirmed me in duty; you have ended my struggles — and by so cheerfully offering to forsake all and follow me, you have displayed a love, dear Louisa, which will, I trust, render you next to my God, the eternal complacency and delight of my soul."