There was no one in the room as the cavalier entered it. The Indian, after depositing his lamp on the table, had gone out again; and was now seen standing on the stoup of the front entrance—silent and statue-like, as at the moment of his master’s return.
“So, so,” muttered the cavalier, seating himself by the table, and once more perusing the despatch. “Scarthe sent down to recruit! And for what purpose? Not for a new campaign against the Scots? I think his Majesty has had enough of that enemy. There’s another may soon claim his attention—nearer home. Perhaps he is growing suspicious; and this may explain his instructions to the cuirassier captain. Well, let him obey them, if he can. As to recruiting, I fancy I’ve been before him in that work. He’ll not add many files to his troop in this county—if peasants’ promises are worth relying upon. Hampden’s persecution and popularity have secured Buckinghamshire for the good cause,—the yeomanry to a man; and as for the peasantry, I have got them into the right way of thinking. The gentry, one after another, come round to us. This day has decided Sir Marmaduke Wade; converting him from a passive spectator to an active partisan—conspirator, if the name rings better. Ah! Sir Marmaduke! henceforth I shall love you, almost as much as I love your daughter. No, no, no! That is a love which passes all comparison; for which I would sacrifice everything upon earth—ay, even the cause!
“No one hears me: I am speaking to my own heart. It is idle to attempt deluding it. I may disguise my love from the world, but not from myself—no, nor from her. She must know it ere this? She must have read it in my looks and actions? Not an hour passes that she is not in my mind,—not a minute. Even in my dreams do I behold her image—as palpably before me, as if she were present—that glorious image of feminine grace, crowned with red roses and yellow gold!
“Can it be an illusion? Could it have been all accident? Have these encounters been fortuitous—on my side only designed? And the last and dearest of all,—when was suffered to fall to the ground that snow-white souvenir, I have pinned so proudly to my beaver—tell me, ye spirits who preside over the destinies of Love—say that I am not the victim of a fancy false, as it would be fatal to my happiness!
“I saw her—I spoke to her—I dared not ask herself. Though yearning for the truth—as the soul yearns for a knowledge of hereafter—I dared not trust myself to demand it. I dreaded the answer, as one building castles in the air, may dread the tempest that in an instant may destroy them.
“O God! I feel, that if this structure be destroyed—this last love of my life—I shall perish amid the ruins!”
The cavalier paused, a deep sigh causing his bosom to heave upward—as if in terror at the contemplation of such a contingency.
After a moment he resumed the thread of his reflections.
“She must have seen her glove so conspicuously placed? She could not fail to recognise it? She could not mistake the motive of my wearing it? If, after all, her act was not intentional—if the gauntlet was really lost—then am I lost. I shall pass in her eyes as an impertinent—a presumptive trickster. Instead of her love I shall be the object of her contempt—not pitied, but scorned! Even Scarthe, despite his defeat, will be thought worthier than I!
“I am mad to think of her! More than mad to hope she should think of me! Worse than wicked to wish it. Even if she should love me, how can it end? Only in her undoing! Heaven keep me from the crime!