"Just wait and I will kiss your lips till they are so red that folks will think you tumbled down among the berries," said the lad. "Come, we will find a quiet place to rest in." And he disappeared again amongst the bushes dragging the girl with him without much trouble.
Donatus hastily turned to go, but suddenly they both gave a little cry of alarm, "O Lord! a wild woman of the woods!" and they fled crossing themselves. Donatus stood still; "What was there? what had frightened the pair so much?" He went towards the spot where they had been sitting; the briars hid a ruined arch-way through which he could look into the desolate castle-yard all overgrown with weeds, and there--wonder of wonders--lay a woman, asleep on a bank of turf artificially constructed and screened by a projection of the wall, that might at some former time have formed a niche where the poor and wretched sat on a stone bench to eat the meal they had begged. But the woman who was sleeping there was neither poor nor wretched; there she lay wrapped in a rich cloak of costly furs and dressed in a green robe embroidered with gold--like a forest-fairy! The playing beams of the morning sun that fell upon her through the whispering boughs, threw a bright light on her cheeks that were rosy with sleep, and the morning breeze blew her soft, silky hair across her dreaming brow, like a film of golden vapour.
Donatus stood as if spell-bound, incapable of going either forwards or backwards--he gazed and gazed and the whole world around him was forgotten. Was it a real living woman--or a trick from hell--it seemed to him that it was the same woman--yes, it was she--! She opened her eyes and a flash of delight, brighter than the morning sunshine sparkled in those eyes.
"Is it you! you?" she exclaimed, springing up. And as Donatus looked into her blue eyes he knew that it was she--she, who, dressed in a peasant's garb, had yesterday so bewildered his senses--she, who so lately had stood before him as the maid-of-honour. And to-day she was here--up here, sleeping on the grass, with no roof over her head--like a wood-fairy--Could she be indeed a real woman and yet capable of such sudden changes? He had never believed in fairies, but could there be such beings? and were they good or evil spirits? And while he thought over all this he stood as if rooted to the spot, regarding the wonderful apparition with astonishment. He saw her sign to him, he heard her call him, and he made no reply--It was not real, it was only a vision, a dream.
"Are you turned to stone? Wait a minute, I will go to you as you will not come to me." The voice was close to his ear and the brilliant figure lightly climbed up the ruined stone-work and in a moment was standing close to him under the arch and bending over towards him.
Those azure lakes, in which, only yesterday, his whole consciousness had been lost, were again close to his intoxicated gaze and pouring their flood of blueness into his soul. It stopped his breath--it ran through all his veins--he leaned against the mullion of the window like one stunned, and gazed and gazed--he could not take his eyes off her--Heaven and earth had faded from his ken--She was too lovely!
"How come you here? What has troubled you so? You are pale and your hair is wet with night dews?" she asked him, softly stroking his tangled curls with her slender white hand.
He staggered as if a flash of lightning had struck him without destroying him; a strange shiver ran through his limbs, a gentle tremor as when the morning breeze shakes the dews of night from the topmost branches of a tree; and nearer, nearer comes the sweet face, and warm breath floats round him--Still he stirs not.
"Do not fix your eyes on me so--as if I were not a creature of flesh and blood," she whispered in his ear. "Put away your sternness; I deserve it of you. For your sake I have passed the night here with my people; here in this uncanny ruin, under the open sky, only to find some way of seeing you again. You have done for me, once for all, with your dreamy face and your severity, and deny it as you will--that which drove you at night out of your narrow cell was my image which pursued you, and while you fled from me you went in truth to seek me! Have I guessed rightly?" And she laid her arm softly round his neck and her lips were close to his ear, while she spoke so that every word was like the breathing of a kiss. He let his head drop and lean against her bosom--he felt dizzy, as if in that instant he had fallen from some towering height. She took him caressingly by the chin, raising his head and looking longingly into his eyes.
"Oh, those eyes! those maddening eyes. Who looks into them is lost! A man who has such eyes as yours can never be a monk!" she exclaimed in a tone of tender jest. "Those eyes give the lie to all your severity--they look fire and kindle fire."