“I thought, I thought he looked as if he could love me,” scarcely articulated the sleeping Eloise. “Perhaps, though he may not love me, he may allow me to love him.—Fitzeustace!”
On a sudden, again were changed the visions of her slumbers; terrified she started from sleep, and cried, “Fitzeustace!”
CHAPTER XII.
For love is heaven, and heaven is love.
Lay of the Last Minstrel.
Needless were it to expatiate on their transports; they loved each other, and that is enough for those who have felt like Eloise and Fitzeustace.
One night, rather later indeed than it was Mountfort’s custom to return from Geneva, Eloise and Fitzeustace sat awaiting his arrival. At last it was too late any longer even to expect him; and Eloise was about to bid Fitzeustace good-night, when a knock at the door aroused them. Instantly, with a hurried and disordered step, his clothes stained with blood, his countenance convulsed and pallid as death, in rushed Mountfort.
An involuntary exclamation of surprise burst from the terrified Eloise.
“What—what is the matter?”
“Oh, nothing, nothing!” answered Mountfort, in a tone of hurried, yet desperate agony. The wildness of his looks contradicted his assertions. Fitzeustace, who had been inquiring whether he was wounded, on finding that he was not, flew to Eloise.