"All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
Are all but ministers of love,
And feed his sacred flame."
He went on, watching her colour change with the musical variations of
his voice, until he came to the verse--
"I told her how he pined,--and ah
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
In which I sang another's love
Interpreted my own."
He saw her breast heaving with agitation, and throwing away the book, he
bent down beside her, and looked up into her deep eyes, and said, "Oh,
Eva, what need of concealment? You have read it long ago, have you not?
I love you, Eva, love you so passionately--you cannot tell the depth of
my love. Do you return it, Eva?" he said as he gained possession of her
hand.
She had won him then--the dream of her latter life. This was the noble
Julian kneeling at her side. She trembled for very joy, and
whispered--"Oh, Julian, Julian, do you not see that I loved you from the
first day we met?" She regretted the speech the next moment, as though
it had been wanting in maidenly reserve, but it was the first warm
natural utterance of her heart; and Julian sprang up in an ecstasy of
joy, and as she rose he claimed as his due a lover's kiss.
She blushed crimson, but suffered him to sit down beside her; and they
sat, hardly knowing anything but the great fact that they loved each
other, till Mr Kennedy's voice had ceased in the adjoining room, and he
came in.
"Oh, there you are," he said. "Edward is sinking to sleep. How good of
you to be so quiet!"
They rose up, and Julian led her to him with her hand in his, and his
arm supporting her. "Mr Kennedy," he said, "I am going to ask you for
the most priceless jewel you possess."
"What? Is it indeed so? Ah, you wicked Julian, do not rob me of Eva
yet. She is too young; and now that Edward seems likely to be ill so
long--ah, me! I am bereaved of my children. Well, well, I suppose it
must be so. Come here, darling, to the old father you are going to
desert; I daresay Julian won't grudge me one kiss."
He kissed her tenderly, and she clung about his neck as she whispered,
"But it will not be yet for a long long time, papa."
"What youth calls long, my Eva; but not long for those who are walking
into the shadow down the hill."
O happy, happy lovers! how gloriously that night did the stars shine out
for you in the deep, unfathomable galaxies of heaven, and the dew fall,
and the moon dawn into a sky yet flushed with the long-unfading purple
of the fading day! Yet there was sadness mixed with their happiness as
they heard, until they parted, the plaintive murmurs of Kennedy's fitful
sleep, and thought of all the sufferings of their brother, and how
nearly, how very nearly, he had been hurried from the midst of them by
self-inflicted death.