“And I rejoice too at his determination,” continued Lord Deraine, “although it was somewhat of a sudden. I began almost to think that the lad was growing too effeminate, with his lute, and other lady pastimes, and forgetting the name that he bore. But I ween had you beheld his eye glisten to-day, when he was first addressed by his military title, you would have said that he was every inch a Lorraine. And God forfend that it should ever come to disgrace! My mother was a daughter of that house,” continued the aged nobleman, “and I feel a strange interest in the boy’s success. Had you seen him to-day you would have said he was a true descendant of the iron-hearted warrior who led that charge at Agincourt, which decided the fortune of the day. Were I as I once was, I would e’en go one campaign with him to learn how they fight in these degenerate days, and show them the manner in which we cavaliers of Prince Rupert used to charge the canting round-heads.”
“But pa,” said Isabel, scarcely venturing to speak, “did he leave no word—no message?”
“Oh! I had almost forgot. He sent a note to you—here it is—about some hawk, or lute, or his greyhound perhaps—did he bid you farewell, by the bye?”
Isabel felt her heart beat faster at the enquiry of her parent, but giving an evasive answer to his question, she took the note, and left the apartment. Little did Lord Deraine suspect the agony which had driven his young kinsman from his halls, or dream of the tears that Isabel shed that night over her ill-fated cousin’s epistle. It ran thus:
Dearest Isabel:—I know not whether to write to you; and yet why should I not? Are we not cousins—brought up under the same roof—taught to love each other from childhood—bound to one another by a thousand ties? Yet we cannot meet again as we have met! Oh! little did I think twenty-four hours ago that such agony as I now suffer would so soon be my lot. But I will not blame you. You never said you loved me—you never smiled on me except as a cousin. It is only I who am wrong. Could I ever think that you, the pure, the beautiful, the courted, would look on a poor page with love? Yet I did: I nursed the delusion long: and now—oh! God—the dream is forever broken.
Forgive me, dear Isabel—for I will yet once more call you by that name—forgive me, for I scarce know what I write. I leave you for years, perhaps forever. I go to seek a name of which you will not be ashamed, or to die. God bless you, again and again, and again dearest Isabel! May you be happy. Once more God bless you!
The tears of the maiden fell thick and fast as she perused this passionate epistle, and she sighed,
“Poor, poor Lorraine—would we had never met, or that you had never loved.”
The absence of the page was felt throughout the castle, for all had loved the generous and high-souled boy. For many a long day the old servitors loved to recall his boyish deeds, and augur a glorious career for the young soldier. And often, as Isabel sat in her splendid chamber, while twilight deepened through the gorgeously curtained windows, her thoughts would wander away after her absent cousin, and taking the melancholy hue of the hour, she would indulge in mournful memories of the past, and sigh that she could make no return to Lorraine except what was all too cold for him,—her friendship. Even De Courtenay, could he have read her thoughts at such moments, would have pardoned her that involuntary pang.