“The star of my nativity!”
“Lillian! my Lillian! tremble not, beloved! hath not kind Heaven given thee to me?” He wound his arms around her frail form, and laid her to his heart.
“Dark youth, I fear thee!” she shrieked, and bursting from his embrace, fled into the night. Suddenly she paused, and covering her face with her hands, crushed the big tears that were gushing from their fountains, “ay!” she murmured, “but I love thee also!”
“Thou dost, my fawn!” said Kenneth, as he regained her side, “swear, then, to be mine.”
The maiden hesitated, for the angel whose ward she was, whispered a warning.
“Swear not, for his brow is dark and his heart fierce—his path lieth through blood, and endeth in blackness!”
Then love lifted up his voice, crying, “What grief so great as parting from thy beloved! What wo so heavy as a disappointed heart!”
And the maiden said, “I swear! Whether for good or evil, for blessing or for blight, my doom is sealed, and I am thine.”
“The crisis is past, beloved,” whispered the wooer—“where is now thy fear?”