Sir Gueramond looked up. The whole manner of his ladye had changed; she was leaning against the parapet, her head supported by her hand. Her oval face was revealed in the full moonshine; the knight thought he could perceive tears shining in her mild eyes, and a sorrowful expression on her sweet countenance; her hair, still unbraided and falling almost to her waist, was slightly agitated by the night air. She was alone.-The knight was no longer silent with as much fervour, with as much tenderness as he had shewn when he first declared his love to Amoret, he assured her of his contrition; he implored of her forgiveness; he repeated, in much passionate language, more lover-like expressions than she had ever listened to. "And I am once more a happy, happy wife?" exclaimed the delighted Amoret, rising up, and clasping her hands together: "And will you really never suspect me again? never be so very jealous? It was so unreasonable, dearest- was it not very unreasonable ?" replied the knight. promise that," cried "Indeed I never will," Nay, you can scarcely Amoret, with a gentle Q laugh, "unless I promise also, as I do most faithfully, that I will give you no reason to be jealous. Dear husband, I must confess that I have been a silly, thoughtless creature: I knew not my true happiness, and, like a child, I trifled with it till it fled me. I think this charming prison has cured me-charming do I call it? O my dear husband, without you I should find every place a desert! Come to me, my love-take me from this dizzy station -I need your support to descend-What! you do not move? Oh, I can guess your thoughts; you imagine that you are really a prisoner! Indeed you are not. I own that I could have confined you in my prison; but you see, my husband, how I have used my powers! Come to me (you will find the passage still open by which you entered), come to me, and I will confess to you all the artful ways that I have practised to discover you, and to deceive you. I will tell you how Lillian and I at last discovered that there was certainly a way of escape through the walls of that eastern saloon-how we hoped you might pass through it- how we were hid behind the hangings when you deemed that I lay beneath the water, into which I had plunged the loose white garment that I wore - how that you taught me the way to escape-But I will tell you all this, and every thing besides, when I can lean upon your arm, and look up in your dear grave face." |