“’Tis for me to think of the danger; ’tis for you only to let me love you—and to meet me here as often as you will.”
“Well, I shall no doubt be here to-morrow after sunset. I must take my maid into confidence: she can keep watch at the terrace steps. Farewell, then!—and be careful—till to-morrow sunset!”
He stepped forward in hope of repeating the kiss, but she recovered her hand from his grasp and fled rapidly up the lane of shrubbery. Everell followed, and saw her ascend the steps, hasten along the terrace, and disappear without looking back. He stood and sighed, thinking how short had been the long-awaited meeting, how tedious would be the time till the next. But he had the kiss to comfort his reflections, at least,—the kiss and the compliant though startled manner in which she had submitted to it. His heart glowing at this recollection, he turned his steps to the seclusion of the glen.
Since she would not meet him before the end of the next day—what an interminable stretch of empty time the interval appeared!—he knew his best course was to return at once to John Tarby’s cottage. But he found it so hard to drag his legs farther from the Foxwell mansion, that he decided to remain concealed among the bracken, on the possibility that she might change her mind and revisit the garden that evening. In this hope he tarried till an hour after nightfall, without reward. He then betook himself reluctantly, with the pangs of hunger and the sighs of disappointment for company, to where his road left the park. At that place Tarby was waiting, and with little speech the two made their way homeward. Everell took the lead, that he might test his knowledge of the path; twice or thrice he had to fall back upon the poacher’s guidance, but on these occasions he made such note of landmarks as should assure him of going right in future.
When they arrived at the cot, Everell gave a different reception to his host’s mention of supper from that which he had given on the previous night. Though love had enabled him to go all the day without food, it did not weaken his appetite now that supper was to be had. John Tarby proved to be no mean cook, and the Jacobite officer, the rustic poacher, and the poacher’s dog partook together of a hearty though simple meal with manifest enjoyment. But love, not to be denied its proverbial effects in all things, asserted its presence by robbing Everell of some hours of sleep, and by directing his dreams when at last his eyes did close.
The next day was but a repetition of that which had gone before, save that the love-sick young gentleman, by taking the forethought to provide himself with bread and cheese, was able, as he reclined among the bracken, to pay some observance to dinner-time when it arrived. At last the slow sun descended upon the Westward hills. A bit of its rim still showed over the sky-line, when Everell glided into the garden, his heart beating faster than ever it had beat when he was going into battle.
Georgiana did not keep him waiting long. She came down the steps, with her finger on her lip, and with the maid Prudence, all excitement, at her heels. “Oh, lor!” whispered Prudence at first sight of Everell; “Oh, lor!” again, when, having taken her station near the steps, she saw Everell lead her mistress up the lane of shrubbery; and “Oh, lor!” a third time when the young man, not yet trusting himself to speech, raised Georgiana’s hand in his trembling fingers to his lips.
And now Everell had to learn that the second interview in a love-affair does not begin where the first left off. Whether it is that the ardour of expectation produces by reaction a chill that mutually benumbs; or whether each participant, still uncertain of the other’s heart, awaits some assurance before again committing his or her own; or whether it be due to any one or all of a dozen conceivable causes, the truth is that the second meeting usually begins with an embarrassment, or shyness, or other feeling, that seems to put the lovers farther apart than they were at the outset; and yet under this the craving for the tokens of love is as strong as ever. This was now Everell’s experience; he wondered why Georgiana was perversely cool, and then why he himself was tongue-tied, powerless to express what was in his heart.
When they had paced the more secluded walks of the garden some fifteen minutes, speaking of anything but that which was most in Everell’s mind, Georgiana suddenly reverted to the question of his safety. The anxious concern with which she regarded him served to break the spell he had suffered under. Making light of his danger, he showed himself so grateful for her solicitude that a still more encouraging tenderness appeared in her eyes. With love in his looks, and in the touch of his hand upon hers, he burst out with declarations of his happiness in her company, and of his misery in her absence. She made no verbal return for these tributes, but the sweet agitation visible in her face was enough. He was about to venture a similar embrace to that of the day before, when they heard Prudence call, in a low but excited voice, “Oh, mistress, mistress, we shall be discovered!” Georgiana, in alarm, whispered to Everell, “Conceal yourself!—good night!” and fled swiftly to where the maid was watching. Standing perfectly still, Everell heard the two women go up the steps, and soon the sound of their footfalls on the terrace died out. They had returned to the house, then; what had caused the maid to give the alarm, he knew not, for there was no sound to indicate any human presence.
Vexed at this abrupt termination of the interview at the very moment when it seemed about to reward him, he waited in the hope of Georgiana’s return. But the hope was vain, and after two or three hours of diminishing expectancy, he sadly—nay, with heart-burning, grievous sighing, and clenching of teeth—resigned himself to the prospect of another long night and another endless day ere the next meeting. And indeed there was no certainty of the meeting even after that vast interval, for no appointment had been made. But he trusted to her humanity, if he dared not count upon feelings fully reciprocal to his own, to bring her to the garden at the next sunset. If she did not come, he knew not what rash thing he might do.