Rose went into the room with the last sentence. She had really spoken from a good motive. Believing that Adeline was getting to like Frederick St. John more than was good for her, consistently with her engagement to the French baron, a word in season might act as a warning. Little did Rose suspect how far things had gone between them.
An hour passed. All save Adeline were gathered in the lighted room. Some were playing chess, some écarté, some were telling Father Marc, who had dropped in, of the young Englishman's sudden departure for England and its cause. Rose was at the piano, singing English songs in a subdued voice. Never was there a sweeter voice than hers: and old Madame de Beaufoy could have listened always to the bygone songs of her native land.
Adeline had not stirred from the terrace; she was leaning still on its balustrades, gazing forth apparently into the night. But that Madame de Castella did not observe her absence, she had been called in long ago, ivout of the night air.
"Oh, beware, my lord, of jealousy!
It is a green-eyed monster, which doth make
styleThe food it feeds on."
That reader of the human heart never put forth a greater truth, a more needed warning. How vainly! We can smile now, we can wonder at the "trifles" that once mocked us; but we did not smile at the time. It is asserted that where there is love, impassioned love, there must be jealousy; and who shall venture to dispute it? Love is most exacting. Its idol must not listen to a tender word, or bestow a look of admiration on another. The faintest shadow of a suspicion will invoke the presence of jealousy; what then when facts and details are put forth, as they had been by Rose? It had aroused the most refined torments of the distressing passion; and let none doubt that they were playing their part cruelly on Adeline's heart. Not that she believed quite all: the hint that he might be intending to marry Sarah Beauclerc but touched her ear and fell away again. She knew enough of his honourable nature to be certain that he would never have spoken of marriage to herself, had he been under the slightest obligation of it to another. But that he loved the girl with deep intensity, or had loved her, Adeline never doubted. And so she stood on: bitterly giving way to this strange anguish which had fallen on her; wondering how long he would stay in England, and how often during his stay there he would see her beautiful rival. The very fact of his having gone without a loving word of adieu seemed a knell of unlucky omen.
But what is that movement which her eye has caught at a distance? Who or what is it, advancing with a hasty step from the dark trees? Ah! the wild rising of her pulse has told her, before the outlines of his form become distinct, as he emerges into that plot of pale light! It was he--he whom she thought to have looked upon at present for the last time; and the ecstatic feeling which rushed over her spirit was such as almost momentarily to obliterate the cruel doubts that oppressed her. He had changed his dress, and was habited in travelling costume. His tread over the lawn was noiseless, and little less so as he ran up the steps to the colonnade.
"How fortunate that you are here, Adeline!" he whispered. "I could not go without endeavouring to obtain a word with you, though I doubted being able to accomplish it."
Adeline, painfully agitated, trembling to excess, both in her heart and frame, murmured some confused words about the time he was losing.