Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/118

88 I passed a feverish, restless night; I could not sleep; I felt that I could not wait till morning—I must see him. At last I dozed and started up, but I touched nothing, yet dreamt I could feel his arms round me. I understood him, and he said, "I am going now, my poor girl. My time is up, and I have gone; but I will come again—I shall be back in less than three years. I am your Destiny."

He pointed to the clock, and it was two. He held up a letter, looked at me long with those gypsy eyes of his, put the letter down on the table, and said in the same way, "That is for your sister—not for you." He went to the door, gave me another of those long peculiar looks, and I saw him no more.

I sprang out of bed to the door into the passage (there was nothing), and thence I went to the room of one of my brothers, in whom I confided. I threw myself on the ground and cried my heart out. He got up and asked what ailed me, and tried to soothe and comfort me. "Richard is gone to Africa," I said, "and I shall not see him for three years." "Nonsense," he replied; "you have only got a nightmare; it was that lobster you had for supper; you told me he was coming to-morrow." "So I did," I sobbed; "but I have seen him in a dream, and he told me he had gone; and if you will wait till the post comes in, you will see that I have told you truly."

I sat all night in my brother's armchair, and at eight o'clock in the morning when the post came in there was a letter for my sister Blanche, enclosing one for me. Richard had found it too painful to part from me, and