CHAPTER XXIV.
MAY AND DECEMBER.
"She looked to the river—looked to the hill—
And thought on the spirit's prophecy;
Then broke the silence stern and still:
'Not you, but Fate, has vanquished me.'"
Lay of the Last Minstrel.
"
eleste, Celeste! do not leave me. Oh! all the world has left me, and will you go, too? This heart—this restless, beating heart—will it never stop aching? Oh, Celeste! once I thought I had no heart; but by this dull, aching pain where it should be, I know I must have had one some time. Stay with me, Celeste. You are the only one in the world left for me to love now."
Gipsy—small, fair and fragile, with her little wan face and unnaturally lustrous eyes—lay moaning restlessly on her low couch, like some tempest-tossed soul quivering between life and death. Like an angel of light, by her side knelt Celeste, with her fair, pitying face and her soft blue eyes, from which the tears fell on the small brown fingers that tightly clasped hers.
"Dear Gipsy, I will not leave you; but you know you must get up and dress soon."
"Oh, yes; but not yet. It is so nice to lie here, and have you beside me. I am so tired, Celeste—I have never rested since I made that promise. It seems as if ever since I had been walking and walking on through the dark, unable to stop, with such an aching here."