How did I utter it? By what words did my heart make itself known? I
remember not. All was as a dream that falls upon a restless, feverish
night, and fades away as the eyes unclose on the peace of a cloudless
heaven, on the bliss of a golden sun. A new morrow seemed indeed upon
the earth when I woke from a life-long yesterday,--her dear hand in
mine, her sweet face bowed upon my breast.
And then there was that melodious silence in which there is no sound
audible from without; yet within us there is heard a lulling celestial
music, as if our whole being, grown harmonious with the universe, joined
from its happy deeps in the hymn that unites the stars.
In that silence our two hearts seemed to make each other understood, to
be drawing nearer and nearer, blending by mysterious concord into the
completeness of a solemn union, never henceforth to be rent asunder.
At length I said softly: “And it was here on this spot that I first saw
you,--here that I for the first time knew what power to change our world
and to rule our future goes forth from the charm of a human face!”
Then Lilian asked me timidly, and without lifting her eyes, how I had
so seen her, reminding me that I promised to tell her, and had never yet
done so.
And then I told her of the strange impulse that had led me into the
grounds, and by what chance my steps had been diverted down the path
that wound to the glade; how suddenly her form had shone upon my
eyes, gathering round itself the rose hues of the setting sun, and how
wistfully those eyes had followed her own silent gaze into the distant
heaven.
As I spoke, her hand pressed mine eagerly, convulsively, and, raising
her face from my breast, she looked at me with an intent, anxious
earnestness. That look!--twice before it had thrilled and perplexed me.
“What is there in that look, oh, my Lilian, which tells me that there
is something that startles you,--something you wish to confide, and yet
shrink from explaining? See how, already, I study the fair book from
which the seal has been lifted! but as yet you must aid me to construe
its language.”
“If I shrink from explaining, it is only because I fear that I cannot
explain so as to be understood or believed. But you have a right to know
the secrets of a life which you would link to your own. Turn your face
aside from me; a reproving look, an incredulous smile, chill--oh, you
cannot guess how they chill me, when I would approach that which to me
is so serious and so solemnly strange.”
I turned my face away, and her voice grew firmer as, after a brief
pause, she resumed,--
“As far back as I can remember in my infancy, there have been moments
when there seems to fall a soft hazy veil between my sight and the
things around it, thickening and deepening till it has the likeness
of one of those white fleecy clouds which gather on the verge of the
horizon when the air is yet still, but the winds are about to rise; and
then this vapour or veil will suddenly open, as clouds open, and let in
the blue sky.”
“Go on,” I said gently, for here she came to a stop. She continued,
speaking somewhat more hurriedly,--
“Then, in that opening, strange appearances present them selves to
me, as in a vision. In my childhood these were chiefly landscapes of
wonderful beauty. I could but faintly describe them then; I could not
attempt to describe them now, for they are almost gone from my memory.
My dear mother chid me for telling her what I saw, so I did not impress
it on my mind by repeating it. As I grew up, this kind of vision--if
I may so call it--became much less frequent, or much less distinct; I
still saw the soft veil fall, the pale cloud form and open, but often
what may then have appeared was entirely forgotten when I recovered
myself, waking as from a sleep. Sometimes, however, the recollection
would be vivid and complete; sometimes I saw the face of my lost father;
sometimes I heard his very voice, as I had seen and heard him in my
early childhood, when he would let me rest for hours beside him as he
mused or studied, happy to be so quietly near him, for I loved him, oh,
so dearly! and I remember him so distinctly, though I was only in my
sixth year when he died. Much more recently--indeed, within the last few
months--the images of things to come are reflected on the space that
I gaze into as clearly as in a glass. Thus, for weeks before I came
hither, or knew that such a place existed, I saw distinctly the old
House, yon trees, this sward, this moss-grown Gothic fount; and, with
the sight, an impression was conveyed to me that in the scene before me
my old childlike life would pass into some solemn change. So that when I
came here, and recognized the picture in my vision, I took an affection
for the spot,--an affection not without awe, a powerful, perplexing
interest, as one who feels under the influence of a fate of which a
prophetic glimpse has been vouchsafed. And in that evening, when you
first saw me, seated here--”
“Yes, Lilian, on that evening--”
“I saw you also, but in my vision--yonder, far in the deeps of
space,--and--and my heart was stirred as it had never been before; and
near where your image grew out from the cloud I saw my father’s face,
and I heard his voice, not in my ear, but as in my heart, whispering--”
“Yes, Lilian--whispering--what?”
“These words,--only these,--‘Ye will need one another.’ But then,
suddenly, between my upward eyes and the two forms they had beheld,
there rose from the earth, obscuring the skies, a vague, dusky vapour,
undulous, and coiling like a vast serpent,--nothing, indeed, of its
shape and figure definite, but of its face one abrupt glare; a flash
from two dread luminous eyes, and a young head, like the Medusa’s,
changing, more rapidly than I could have drawn breath, into a grinning
skull. Then my terror made me bow my head, and when I raised it again,
all that I had seen was vanished. But the terror still remained, even
when I felt my mother’s arm round me and heard her voice. And then, when
I entered the house, and sat down again alone, the recollection of what
I had seen--those eyes, that face, that skull--grew on me stronger and
stronger till I fainted, and remember no more, until my eyes, opening,
saw you by my side, and in my wonder there was not terror. No, a sense
of joy, protection, hope, yet still shadowed by a kind of fear or awe,
in recognizing the countenance which had gleamed on me from the skies
before the dark vapour had risen, and while my father’s voice had
murmured, ‘Ye will need one another.’ And now--and now--will you love
me less that you know a secret in my being which I have told to no
other,--cannot construe to myself? Only--only, at least, do not mock me;
do not disbelieve me! Nay, turn from me no longer now: now I ask to meet
your eyes. Now, before our hands can join again, tell me that you do not
despise me as untruthful, do not pity me as insane.”
“Hush, hush!” I said, drawing her to my breast. “Of all you tell me
we will talk hereafter. The scales of our science have no weights fine
enough for the gossamer threads of a maiden’s pure fancies. Enough for
me--for us both--if out from all such illusions start one truth, told
to you, lovely child, from the heavens; told to me, ruder man, on the
earth; repeated by each pulse of this heart that woos you to hear and
to trust,--now and henceforth through life unto death, ‘Each has need of
the other,’--I of you, I of you! my Lilian! my Lilian!”