THE DISCOVERY.
How silver sweet sound lovers' tongues by night!
Like softest music to attending ears.
_Romeo and Juliet._
Leaving the lovers to their rapture, let us glance in at the warm
drawing-room, and at the philosophic whist-table: Captain Heath is
standing with his back to the fire; Tom Wincot having "cut in" in his
place; Violet and Rose are knitting.
"Blanche, my dear," said Meredith Vyner.
"She has gone to bed, papa," said Rose.
"Oh, very well. Is Mr. Chamberlayne come in? No! Our deal, is it
not?"
This little fragment of the conversation suddenly made Captain Heath
suspicious. He was before aware that Blanche and Cecil were absent;
but he had not before coupled their two exits in his own mind, so as
to draw therefrom a conclusion. "Can they have arranged this?"
flashed across his brain. He quietly left the room, took his hat,
and walked out. Though by no means of a jealous disposition, he
could not help commenting in his own mind on a hundred insignificant
traits of what appeared to him Blanche's passion for Cecil, and the
conclusion he drew from them was, that she not only loved him, but
studiously concealed her love. As he said, with him "once to be in
doubt was once to be resolved;" his was none of that petty, querulous
jealousy, irritated at self-inflicted tortures, and yet too weak to
finish them by making doubts certainties. Like a brave man, as he
was, he paused not an instant in endeavouring to arrive at certitude
in all things. Instead, therefore, of worrying himself with doubts
and arguments, with hopes that she might not love Cecil, and fears
that she did, he determined to settle the point, and place it beyond
a doubt.
He had not gone far when his quick ears detected the indistinct
murmur of conversation. He paused for a moment, and leaned against a
tree. A cold perspiration stood on his brow; a feeling of sickness,
which he could not subdue, arrested him; the first spasm of despair
clutched his heart, as the murmur fell upon his ear, and told him
that what he had suspected was the truth.
That he might not be mistaken; that he might not act without thorough
conviction, he approached still closer to the spot from whence the
murmur came, and there he saw the lovers seated under the dark
branches of a gigantic larch, which served to make Blanche's white
dress more visible.
Little did that happy pair suspect with what heartbroken interest
they were contemplated. They pressed each other's hand, and repeated
endless variations of that phrase, of all phrases most dulcet to
mortal ear, "I love you;" and if they thought at all, thought
themselves forgotten by the world they so entirely forgot.
In the midst of their dreamy bliss, a low, half-stifled sob startled
them. They sprang up. She clung tremblingly to him. He looked
eagerly around, piercing through the shadowy pathways with a glance
of terror. He could discover nothing. All was silent. Nothing
stirred.
"Did you not hear a groan?" he whispered.
"It seemed like a sob."
"All is silent. I see no one. Listen!"
They listened for some seconds; not a sound was audible.
"It must have been fancy," he said.
"No; I heard it too plainly."
"Perhaps it was a noise made by one of the cows yonder."
"At any rate, let us go in. Do you return by the shrubbery. I will
go round by the garden."