LOVE AND MYSTERY.
The next morning, Alrina met her lover again by appointment, on the
rocks below Cape Cornwall; and here they renewed their former
protestations of love and constancy, and the hours passed pleasantly
away. But sunshine will not last for ever, and the brighter the sunshine
the darker will the cloud seem that obscures it for a time. In the midst
of their happiness a cloud passed over the countenance of Morley, and he
became thoughtful.
"Tell me," said Alrina, "what has caused this sudden gloom?"
"It is nothing, dearest," said he, putting his arm round her waist; "I
was just thinking how much more need we have of mutual sympathy than
either of us imagined. You have your secrets which you wish to
discover,--I mean as to your mother's and your father's early history,
and your own, and that secret which you seem to think your father has
hidden in his breast."
"Indeed, Frederick," replied Alrina, "I scarcely wish now to discover
those secrets,--for I fear the knowledge of them, whenever they are
discovered, may deprive me of that which I prize more than anything else
on earth--your love!"
"No, never!" replied her lover; "whatever your father may have done, or
whatever those secrets may be, as to the early history of your family,
will not alter my love for you, dear Alrina! I have a secret too,"
continued he; "and mine is a terrible one--one that would terrify you,
were I to tell you--and therefore it is better, perhaps, kept where it
is; I can bear it better alone. But we are only dreaming--don't cry,
Alrina;--all will be well in the end."
"But you have a terrible secret too, you say, Frederick?" she replied
through her tears. "I have told you all I know of myself; is your's a
secret to be kept from me? are you afraid to trust me, too?"--and the
poor girl burst into tears, and would not be comforted. She felt herself
an object of distrust to all, and her heart could not bear up against
such cold suspicion.
"Be calm, dear Alrina," said Frederick, in a soothing tone; "I have
nothing to conceal that you may not know. It will do you no good to know
it, and it may prey on your sensitive mind too much, and therefore do
more harm than good; but if you wish to know all, and you think you can
bear to hear it, I will tell you the whole,--but you must be calm."
"Oh! yes," replied Alrina, drying her tears; "I would rather know all. I
will be firm. I can bear anything with you, or for you." She placed her
hand in his, and looked up into his face with earnest love, as he
related to her the tale of his father's adventure in the snow, and his
accusation and acquittal for want of evidence. He told her also of his
brother, and that he was expected home from India about this time, and
how he feared he might have been in that Indiaman that was wrecked on
the coast but a few days before.
"Oh! Frederick, don't distress yourself about imaginary evils," said
Alrina; "bad news flies fast enough. A thought struck me while you were
relating that dreadful tale,--my father!"
"Your father!" exclaimed Frederick, hastily.
"Yes," she said; "why not ask him to help you in unravelling this
terrible secret. He is very clever, and knows many things that other
people scarcely dream of. People come here to consult him from all parts
of the country, and they generally go away satisfied; so I suppose he
tells them what they require to know. He is gone to some distant part
to-day, I believe, to cure some poor wretch who thinks he is ill-wished.
Remember, I have no confidence in that part of his scientific
pretension; but I know he has a clear head to sift out a mystery, and
has resources which few else have, from keeping all these
'goostrumnoodles' under his thumb, and some of the sharpest of them in
his pay."
"I will think of this," said Morley, smiling; "and if I become a convert
I will still consult the conjuror."
He then began to talk of his sister, Alrina's former schoolfellow. She
had left school, he said, and was living with their aunt, Mrs. Courland,
who had returned to her old house again near Bristol, where they were
staying when that sad affair happened to their father. Alrina must go
and see them.
The time passed swiftly on in such sweet converse, and they lingered on
and on--rising frequently to separate, and sitting down again; and in
the intensity of their love they neither of them saw that curious head,
nor those curious eyes and ears, which were watching them again, and
noting all their words and actions.
"Ho! ho!" said the individual, as it bore that curious head away on its
shoulders; "_more secrets worth knowing!_"