CHAPTER VII.
_Queen_. Whereon do you look?
_Hamlet_. On him, on him,--look you how pale he glares!--_Hamlet_.
PERHAPS to Maltravers those few minutes which ensued, as they walked
slowly on, compensated for all the troubles and cares of years; for
natures like his feel joy even yet more intensely than sorrow. It might
be that the transport, the delirium of passionate and grateful thoughts
that he poured forth, when at last he could summon words, expressed
feelings the young Evelyn could not comprehend, and which less delighted
than terrified her with the new responsibility she had incurred. But
love so honest, so generous, so intense, dazzled and bewildered and
carried her whole soul away. Certainly at that hour she felt no
regret--no thought but that one in whom she had so long recognized
something nobler than is found in the common world was thus happy and
thus made happy by a word, a look from her! Such a thought is woman's
dearest triumph; and one so thoroughly unselfish, so yielding, and so
soft, could not be insensible to the rapture she had caused.
"And oh!" said Maltravers, as he clasped again and again the hand that he
believed he had won forever, "now, at length, have I learned how
beautiful is life! For this--for this I have been reserved! Heaven is
merciful to me, and the waking world is brighter than all my dreams!"
He ceased abruptly. At that instant they were once more on the terrace
where he had first joined Teresa, facing the wood, which was divided by a
slight and low palisade from the spot where they stood. He ceased
abruptly, for his eyes encountered a terrible and ominous apparition,--a
form connected with dreary associations of fate and woe. The figure had
raised itself upon a pile of firewood on the other side of the fence, and
hence it seemed almost gigantic in its stature. It gazed upon the pair
with eyes that burned with a preternatural blaze, and a voice which
Maltravers too well remembered shrieked out "Love! love! What! _thou_
love again? Where is the Dead! Ha, ha! Where is the Dead?"
Evelyn, startled by the words, looked up, and clung in speechless terror
to Maltravers. He remained rooted to the spot.
"Unhappy man," said he, at length, and soothingly, "how came you hither?
Fly not, you are with friends."
"Friends!" said the maniac, with a scornful laugh. "I know thee, Ernest
Maltravers,--I know thee: but it is not thou who hast locked me up in
darkness and in hell, side by side with the mocking fiend! Friends! ah,
but no Friends shall catch me now! I am free! I am free! Air and wave
are not more free!" And the madman laughed with horrible glee. "She is
fair--fair," he said, abruptly checking himself, and with a changed
voice, "but not so fair as the Dead. Faithless that thou art--and yet
she loved _thee_! Woe to thee! woe! Maltravers, the perfidious! Woe to
thee--and remorse--and shame!"
"Fear not, Evelyn,--fear not," whispered Maltravers, gently, and placing
her behind him; "support your courage,--nothing shall harm you."
Evelyn, though very pale, and trembling from head to foot, retained her
senses. Maltravers advanced towards the mad man. But no sooner did the
quick eye of the last perceive the movement, than, with the fear which
belongs to that dread disease,--the fear of losing liberty,--he turned,
and with a loud cry fled into the wood. Maltravers leaped over the
fence, and pursued him some way in vain. The thick copses of the wood
snatched every trace of the fugitive from his eye.
Breathless and exhausted, Maltravers returned to the spot where he had
left Evelyn. As he reached it, he saw Teresa and her husband approaching
towards him, and Teresa's merry laugh sounded clear and musical in the
racy air. The sound appalled him; he hastened his steps to Evelyn.
"Say nothing of what we have seen to Madame de Montaigne, I beseech you,"
said he; "I will explain why hereafter."
Evelyn, too overcome to speak, nodded her acquiescence. They joined the
De Montaignes, and Maltravers took the Frenchman aside.
But before he could address him, De Montaigne said,--
"Hush! do not alarm my wife--she knows nothing; but I have just heard at
Paris, that--that he has escaped--you know whom I mean?"
"I do; he is at hand; send in search of him! I have seen him. Once more
I have seen Castruccio Cesarini!"
