Moonlight at Windsor Hall! The waning, January moon shone coldly and brightly, as it rose above the dense forest which surrounded the once more peaceful home of Colonel Temple. The tall poplars which shaded the quiet yard were silvered with its light, and looked like medieval knights all clad in burnished and glistening mail. The crisp hoarfrost that whitened the frozen ground sparkled in the mellow beams, like twinkling stars, descended to earth, and drinking in with rapture the clear light of their native heaven. Not a sound was heard save the dreary, wintry blast, as it sighed its mournful requiem over the dead year, “gone from the earth for ever.”
Virginia Temple had not yet retired to rest, although it was growing late. She was sitting alone, in her little chamber, and watching the glowing embers on the hearth, as they sparkled for a moment, and shed a ruddy light around, and then were extinguished, throwing the whole room into dark shadow. Sad emblem, these fleeting sparks, of the hopes that had once been bright before her, assuming fancied shapes of future joy and peace and love, and then dying to leave her sad heart the darker for their former presence. In the solitude of her own thoughts she was taking a calm review of her past life—her early childhood—when she played in innocent mirth beneath the shade of the oaks and poplars that still stood unchanged in the yardher first acquaintance with Hansford, which opened a new world to her young heart, replete with joys and treasures unknown before—all the thrilling events of the last few months—her last meeting with her lover, and his prayer that she at least would not censure him, when he was gone—her present despondency and gloom—all these thoughts came in slow and solemn procession across her mind, like dreary ghosts of the buried past.
Suddenly she was startled from her reverie by the sound of a low, sweet, familiar voice, beneath her window, and, as she listened, the melancholy spirit of the singer sought and found relief in the following tender strains:
“Once more I seek thy quiet home,
My tale of love to tell,
Once more from danger's field I come,
To breathe a last farewell!
Though hopes are flown,
Though friends are gone;
Yet wheresoe'r I flee,
I still retain,
And hug the chain
Which binds my soul to thee.
“My heart, like some lone chamber left,
Must, mouldering, fall at last;
Of hope, of love, of thee bereft,
It lives but in the past.
With jealous care,
I cherish there
The web, however small,
That memory weaves,
And mercy leaves,
Upon that ruined wall.
“Though Tyranny, with bloody laws,
May dig my early grave,
Yet death, when met in Freedom's cause,
Is sweetest to the brave;
Wedded to her,
Without a fear,
I'll mount her funeral pile,
Welcome the death
Which seals my faith,
And meet it with a smile.
“While, like the tides, that softly swell
To kiss their mother moon,
Thy gentle soul will soar to dwell
In visions with mine own;
As skies distil
The dews that fill
The blushing rose at even,
So blest above,
I'll mourn thy love
And weep for thee in heaven.”
It needed not the well-known voice of Hansford to assure the weeping girl that he was near her. The burden of that sad song, which found an echo in her own heart, told her too plainly that it could be only he. It was no time for delicate scruples of propriety. She only knew that he was near her and in danger. Rising from her chair, and throwing around her a shawl to protect her from the chill night air, she hastened to the door. In another moment they were in each other's arms.
“Oh, my own Virginia,” said Hansford, “this is too, too kind. I had only thought to come and breathe a last farewell, and then steal from your presence for ever. I felt that it was a privilege to be near you, to watch, unseen, the flickering light reflected from your presence. This itself had been reward sufficient for the peril I encounter. How sweet then to hear once more the accents of your voice, and to feel once more the warm beating of your faithful heart.”
“And could you think,” said Virginia, as she wept upon his shoulder, “that knowing you to be in danger, I could fail to see you. Oh, Hansford! you little know the truth of woman's love if you can for a moment doubt that your misfortune and your peril have made you doubly dear.”