To both the lovers the hours seemed leaden indeed, until night came. At
last, the church clock of Toulouse chimed three-quarters past eleven,
and Gabrielle stole tremblingly down to the garden. The night was dark,
and not a sound could the young girl hear but the tumultuous beating
of her own heart, as she gently withdrew the bolts from the outer door
and stepped lightly upon the soft green sward. Filled with dread of
the consequences which might ensue if her secret meeting with Maurice
should be discovered by her father, the poor child's remorse for her
act of disobedience, as she regarded it, caused her to pause more than
once, undecided whether to keep her tacit promise, or to creep back
swiftly to her chamber. Before she could adopt the course dictated by
prudence and submission to her father's will, she heard a light step
behind her, and in another instant she was clasped in her lover's arms.
Gently releasing herself, she placed her hand in his, and led him to a
low bench close by, under the shadow of a tree. Seated side by side,
they spoke in low whispers of their approaching separation and of their
mutual sorrow during Maurice's long absence from France. They talked
of their occupations, and of the expedients each would adopt to make
the time seem less wearisome. They arranged the employment of every
day, and fixed the hours when each should breathe the other's name, and
thus know that they were in communion of thought, though thousands of
miles of ocean rolled between them, forgetting that in widely different
climes the day to one would be night to the other. Then, perhaps,
this geographical obstacle occurred to them, and they triumphantly
vanquished it by promising to think of each other always, awake by day
and in dreams by night, which would be the surest method of never being
absent for an instant from each other's meditations.
In these lover-like communings the night sped quickly, and over the
tree-tops came the silver streaks in the clouds which herald the
approach of dawn. They knew that their remaining time must now be
short, and for a while they spoke no words. Still they sat side by side
upon the bench, Maurice holding Gabrielle's hand folded within his own.
Motionless, and with her head leaning forward, she wept in silence,
tears of mingled joy and anguish. Maurice felt a strange thrill of
rapture in his heart as he gazed in the sweet face of his beautiful
betrothed, illumined by the soft rays of the moon, and as if seized
with a sudden impulse, he fell upon his knees before her.
"Do you love me, dearest?" he murmured in trembling accents.
"God is my witness," she answered gently, "that I love you better than
aught else on earth."
As if startled by the danger of discovery to which they were becoming
every instant more and more exposed, the young man sprang hastily to
his feet, clasped her in his arms, and kissed her passionately.
"Farewell, my own true love," he said softly. "Farewell until we meet
again."
"Must you then leave me?"
"Alas, yes!"
She feared that her own gentleness and calmness at the supreme moment
of parting would seem cold and tame in contrast with his exaltation,
and, throwing her arms around his neck, she cried--
"Kiss me once more, Maurice; once more!"
Again he pressed his burning lips to hers in one long, last embrace.
"Farewell, Maurice," she sighed. "I feel that, if I were in my shroud,
your kiss would recall me back to life!"
And with these prophetic words ringing strangely in his ears, he
turned, and fled from her presence.