Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/531

518 “The handkerchief. Is not that mine?”

Rose faltered a word. Why did he ask for it? Because he asked for nothing else, and wanted no other thing save that.

Why did she hesitate? Because it was so poor a gift, and so unworthy of him.

And why did he insist? Because in honour she was bound to surrender it.

And why did she hesitate still? Let her answer.

“Oh, Evan! I would give you anything but that; and if you are going away I should beg so much to keep it.”

He must have been in a singular state not to see her heart in the refusal, as was she not to see his in the request. But Love is blindest just when the bandage is being removed from his forehead.

“Then you will not give it me, Rose? Do you think I shall go about boasting ‘This is Miss Jocelyn’s handkerchief, and I, poor as I am, have won it? ”

The taunt struck aslant in Rose’s breast with a peculiar sting. She stood up.

“I will give it you, Evan.”

Turning from him she drew it forth, and handed it to him hurriedly, with her head still averted.

It was warm. It was stained with his blood. He guessed where it had been nestling, and now, as if by revelation, he saw that large sole star in the bosom of his darling, and was blinded by it and lost his senses.

“Rose! beloved! I love you!”

Her hand, her arm, her waist, he seized, bending over her. And like the flower of his nightly phantasy bending over the stream, he looked and saw in her sweet face the living wonders that encircled his image; she murmuring: “No, no; you must hate me. I know it.”

Anything but a denial, and he might have retrieved his step, but that she should doubt his strong true love plunged him deeper.

“I love you, Rose. I have not a hope to win you; but I love you. My heaven! my only darling! I hold you a moment—and I go; but know that I love you and would die for you. Beloved Rose! do you forgive me?”

She raised her face to him.

“Forgive you for loving me?” she said, smiling the soft inward smile of rarest bliss.

Holy to them grew the stillness: the ripple suffused in golden moonlight: the dark edges of the leaves against superlative brightness. Not a chirp was heard, nor anything save the cool and endless carol of the happy waters, whose voices are the spirits of silence. Nature seemed consenting that their hands should be joined, their eyes intermingling. And when Evan, with a lover’s craving, wished her lips to say what her eyes said so well, Rose drew his fingers up, and, with an arch smile and a blush, kissed them. The simple act set his heart thumping, and from the look of love, she saw an expression of pain pass through him. Her fealty—her guileless, fearless truth—which the kissing of his hand brought vividly before him, conjured its contrast as well in this that was hidden from her, or but half suspected. Did she know—know and love him still? He thought it might be: but that fell dead on her asking:

“Shall I speak to mama to-night?”

A load of lead crushed him.

“Rose!” he said; but could get no farther.

Innocently, or with well-masked design, Rose branched off into little sweet words about his bruised shoulder, touching it softly, as if she knew the virtue that was in her touch, and accusing her selfish self as she caressed it: “Dearest Evan! you must have been sure I thought no one like you. Why did you not tell me before? I can hardly believe it now! Do you know,” she hurried on, “they all think me cold and heartless,—am I? I must be, to have made you run such risk; but yet I’m sure I could not have survived you.”

Dropping her voice, Rose quoted Ruth. As Evan listened, the words were like food from heaven poured into his spirit.

“To-morrow,” he kept saying to himself, “to-morrow I will tell her all. Let her think well of me a few short hours.”

But the passing minutes locked them closer: each had a new 1ink—in a word, or a speechless breath, or a touch: and to break the marriage of their eyes there must be infinite baseness on one side, or on the other disloyalty to love.

The moon was a silver ball, high up through the aspen. Evan kissed the hand of Rose, and led her back to the house. He had appeased his conscience by restraining his wild desire to kiss her lips.

In the hall they parted. Rose whispered, “Till death!” giving him her hands. She was then warm beneath his mouth, and one eternal kiss hung ripe for him. The force of his passion plucked him down, but his lips rested on her forehead.

mourn for thee? Though tears be vain, Our bursting hearts refute The frigid philosophic strain, That deepest woes are mute. However stoic Reason preach, Warm Nature will rebel, And grief must strive to vent in speech What words are vain to tell, Mary!

Not mourn for thee? It may be, Time, That dries all human tears, Will bid the flood of passion’s prime Ebb with the healing years. But still from out our hearts will well One low, undying strain, A plaint, as of the murmuring shell That ever mourns the main, Mary!

Not mourn for thee? It may be, Earth Will circle as of yore, And leaf, and flower, and fruit, have birth As bounteous as before; But we shall mark a charm the less In earth, and sea, and sky, Missed from that perfect loveliness They wore when thou wert by, Mary!