“I do not pity that false-hearted knight; his was a just punishment
for a heavy sin: for the poor bride to die thus in her youth and
happiness,——O, it was very sad!”
“Not so,” said Isilda, and she spoke in a low dreamy tone, as if half to
herself. “It was not sad, even to be slain by him she loved, since she
died in his arms, having known that he loved her. It was a happy fate.”
There was such an expression of intense feeling in the girl’s face as she
spoke, that Margareta looked at her in wondering silence; but Basil gave
an involuntary start, as if a new light had broken in upon his mind. The
living crimson rushed immediately over Isilda’s face and neck, she seemed
shrinking into the earth with shame, and said no more. Basil, too, kept
silence. No marvel was it in the timid girl who rarely gave utterance to
her thoughts, but that he whose heart was so full of poetry, whose lips
were ever brimming over with eloquence, should be dumb,——it was passing
strange! The student felt as though there was a finger laid on his lips,
an unseen presence compelling him to silence; but the finger and the
presence were those of the Angel of Love.
There was a constraint visible in all but Margareta; she, too young to
understand what was passing in the hearts of the two she loved so much,
began to sport with her friend.
“Well! I should not envy Count Ludwig’s bride, Isilda; I would much
rather live. Farewell, you dolorous folk. I will go spin.”
And she vanished with the swiftness of a young fawn. The mother followed
her with her eyes.
“A sunny and loving heart is thine, my child,” she murmured. “God bless
thee, and keep all care from that gay spirit!” And Madame Wolgemuth
leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes. The mother’s heart seemed
absorbed in the past, or else dreaming of her child’s future.
But, by the two thus left together, past and future were alike
unregarded. With Basil and Isilda it was all the present,——the blissful
present, full of hope and love. They talked but little, and in broken
sentences, flitting from subject to subject, lest each should lead to the
unveiling of the delicious secret that was uppermost in both their hearts
and which they at once feared, yet longed to utter. At last the lamp grew
dim, and the moonlight streamed in through the narrow window. Isilda
noticed and spoke of it,——it was a relief.
“How lovely the moon looks, setting behind the cathedral!” And, rising,
she walked to the window; it might be she was glad to escape from the
passionate tenderness of Basil’s gaze.
The young student followed her, moving noiselessly, for his aged mother
had fallen asleep. And now the two stood together, silent, alone with
their own hearts, looking up to the quiet, star-lit sky, and drinking in
love, which seemed infinite as that heaven itself.
“How beautiful is this world!” murmured the girl.
“I feel it so; and most when thus with thee, Isilda,”——and with
what unspeakable sweetness and tenderness the name lingered on his
lips,——“Isilda,——my Isilda!”
There was a moment of tremulous silence, and then the girl felt herself
drawn closer, until her head rested on his bosom, and she heard his voice
whispering in her ear,——
“May I call thee _my_ Isilda——all mine——mine only——mine forever?”
She raised her head, and looked timidly but searchingly in his
countenance.
“Is it indeed true? dost thou then love me?”
“As my own soul!” passionately answered the student.
Isilda hid her face again in his bosom, and burst into a shower of tears.
The girl and her lover went home together that night, through the cold,
clear starlight, to Isilda’s abode. Many and many a time had they trod
the same path, but now everything was changed. They had become all in
all to each other; an infinity of love was around them; all was light,
hope, and trembling gladness. The crisp snow crackled under Isilda’s
feet, and the sharp frosty air made her shiver; but she felt it not.
She only clung the closer to Basil’s arm; he was all her own now; he,
her life’s joy, her pride, the idol of her dreams, the delight of her
soul. Such happiness was almost too much to bear; and, therefore, when
she first knew that he loved her, had Isilda wept,——nay, even when she
had parted from Basil and was alone, her full heart poured itself forth
in tears. That he,——the noble, the gifted, so rich in the greatest of
all wealth,——the wealth of genius; honored among men, with a glorious
harvest of fame yet unreaped before him,——that he should love her, who
had nothing to give but a heart that worshipped him! The girl, in her
humility, felt unworthy of such deep happiness; all that her lips would
utter were the blessed, joyful words, “He loves me,——he loves me! my
Basil, mine own!” And even in her sleep she murmured the same.
Man’s love is not like woman’s, yet Basil was very happy,——happier than
he had ever been in his life. The student, the philosopher, felt that
all his wisdom was as nothing compared to the wondrous alchemy of love.
So far from being weakened, his lofty mind seemed to grow richer beneath
the light of beloved eyes; it was like the sunshine to the ripening corn.
Basil now knew how long Isilda had filled his thoughts, and been mingled
with all his hopes. He did not even then fathom the depths of her spirit,
but he felt it was one with his; and man, proud man, ever rejoices to see
his soul’s image reflected in a woman’s heart.