'How frightful!' murmured Eliza, shuddering. 'And should one go alone?'
'Yis, entirely alone, an' unknownst to any livin' sowl.' As she uttered these words, she rose and walked on with a rapidity astonishing in one so old and feeble.
Eliza gazed after her. She wanted to ask more questions, but fearing to do so, she too turned and walked away in the opposite direction.
The wall they had stood beside inclosed a spacious park. But behind that wall there had been a listener to their words, of whose presence they were not aware.
In the centre of the smoothly gravelled side-path a young lady stood still. She seemed to have been taking an evening saunter when the voices outside arrested her attention. As she now walked slowly on, she appeared to be sunk in deep reflection, evidently of no cheerful nature. The deep dark-blue eyes, whenever the snowy lids with their fringe of long black lashes allowed them to become visible, were full of mournful expression. It was a beautiful face, a perfect oval in contour, with features more strictly regular than those of the rustic beauty Eliza Daly; but wanting in the brilliancy and richness of colouring which made the great charm of that sparkling little brunette. The full white forehead was very thoughtful. One could see that melancholy would be at any time the characteristic of her countenance, as it indeed frequently is of thoughtful faces. But there was so much sweetness and gentleness in it, and the charm of its pensiveness was such, that you would not have wished to change it for a gayer look.
'How will it all end?' murmured the lady. 'How will things be with me in a year? If I believed in presentiments I would say that this weight that presses on me boded evil. Which of the two fates is to be mine? To die, or to live and be his wife. One or the other, I think; but which?'
Suddenly she again stopped, and listened with her head bent down. No sound seemed to break the silence of the evening; but after a few minutes, footsteps on the road without became distinctly heard, a light elastic tread, with a firmness in its fall that told it was that of a man. She listened with suspended breath, standing perfectly motionless, the colour suffusing her pale cheek, her hands clasped tightly, as if in intensest agitation and suspense. The steps came nearer and nearer, went by the park wall, reached the gate, and as they receded, the colour faded slowly from the expectant face, the hands unlocked themselves, and drooped by her side, while her breath returned with a low gasping sigh.
The next moment a thought seemed to strike her; she sprang towards the wall, and stepping on the trunk of a fallen tree, looked over it down the road. The figure of a young man was visible at a little distance, and while he walked, as if in careless mood, he passed his cane lightly through the wayside grass and flowers, striking off their heads as he went by. She watched him till he disappeared from view, taking the turn which led to Daly's farm.
'I knew it, I knew it!' she murmured; and in that passion of sorrow which seems as if it must take hold of and cling to something, she wound her arms tightly about the young elm that stood by her side, striving to choke back the sobs that rose in her throat. The evening breeze went moaning through its topmost boughs, mingling its sighs with hers. A shower of yellow leaves, shaken by her convulsive grasp, fell around her to the ground, like the faded hopes for which she lamented.