International Short Stories: English. Various
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was so early crossed, but not that fidelity of remembrance which made Leoline dearer to him than all others, and forbade him to replace the images he had graven upon his soul.
The orphan's lips trembled with the name of Otho, but a certain recollection stifled even her anxiety. Warbeck hastened to forestall her questions.
"Otho was well," he said, "and sojourning at Constantinople; he had lingered there so long that the crusade had terminated without his aid: doubtless now he would speedily return;—a month, a week, nay, a day might restore him to her side."
Leoline was inexpressibly consoled, yet something remained untold. Why, so eager for the strife of the sacred tomb had he thus tarried at Constantinople? She wondered, she wearied conjecture, but she did not dare to search farther.
The generous Warbeck concealed from her that Otho led a life of the most reckless and indolent dissipations wasting his wealth in the pleasures of the Greek court, and only occupying his ambition with the wild schemes of founding a principality in those foreign climes, which the enterprises of the Norman adventurers had rendered so alluring to the knightly bandits of the age.
The cousins resumed their old friendship, and Warbeck believed that it was friendship alone. They walked again among the gardens in which their childhood had strayed; they sat again on the green turf whereon they had woven flowers; they looked down on the eternal mirror of the Rhine;—ah! could it have reflected the same unawakened freshness of their life's early spring!
The grave and contemplative mind of Warbeck had not been so contented with the honours of war, but that it had sought also those calmer sources of emotion which were yet found amongst the sages of the East. He had drunk at the fountain of the wisdom of those distant climes, and had acquired the habits of meditation which were indulged by those wiser tribes from which the Crusaders brought back to the North the knowledge that was destined to enlighten their posterity. Warbeck, therefore, had little in common with the ruder chiefs around: he did not summon them to his board, nor attend at their noisy wassails. Often late at night, in yon shattered tower, his lonely lamp shone still over the mighty stream, and his only relief to loneliness was in the presence and the song of his soft cousin.
Months rolled on, when suddenly a vague and fearful rumour reached the castle of Liebenstein. Otho was returning home to the neighbouring tower of Sternfels; but not alone. He brought back with him a Greek bride of surprising beauty, and dowered with almost regal wealth. Leoline was the first to discredit the rumour; Leoline was soon the only one who disbelieved.
Bright in the summer noon flashed the array of horsemen; far up the steep ascent wound the gorgeous cavalcade; the lonely towers of Liebenstein heard the echo of many a laugh and peal of merriment. Otho bore home his bride to the hall of Sternfels.
That night there was a great banquet in Otho's castle; the lights shown from every casement, and music swelled loud and ceaselessly within.
By the side of Otho, glittering with the prodigal jewels of the East, sat the Greek. Her dark locks, her flashing eye, the false colours of her complexion, dazzled the eyes of her guests. On her left hand sat the Templar.
"By the holy rood," quoth the Templar, gaily, though he crossed himself as he spoke, "we shall scare the owls to-night on those grim towers of Liebenstein. Thy grave brother, Sir Otho, will have much to do to comfort his cousin when she sees what a gallant life she would have led with thee."
"Poor damsel," said the Greek, with affected pity, "doubtless she will now be reconciled to the rejected one. I hear he is a knight of a comely mien."
"Peace!" said Otho, sternly, and quaffing a large goblet of wine.
The Greek bit her lip, and glanced meaningly at the Templar, who returned the glance.
"Nought but a beauty such as thine can win my pardon," said Otho, turning to his bride, and gazing passionately in her face.
The Greek smiled.
Well sped the feast, the laugh deepened, the wine circled, when Otho's eye rested on a guest at the bottom of the board, whose figure was mantled from head to foot, and whose face was covered by a dark veil.
"Beshrew me!" said he, aloud, "but this is scarce courteous at our revel: will the stranger vouchsafe to unmask?"
These words turned all eyes to the figure, and they who sat next it perceived that it trembled violently; at length it rose, and walking slowly, but with grace, to the fair Greek, it laid beside her a wreath of flowers.
"It is a simple gift, ladye," said the stranger, in a voice of such sweetness that the rudest guest was touched by it. "But it is all I can offer, and the bride of Otho should not be without a gift at my hands. May ye both be happy!"
With these words, the stranger turned and passed from the hall silent as a shadow.
"Bring back the stranger!" cried the Greek, recovering her surprise. Twenty guests sprang up to obey her mandate.
"No, no!" said Otho, waving his hand impatiently. "Touch her not, heed her not, at your peril."
The Greek bent over the flowers to conceal her anger, and from amongst them dropped the broken half of a ring. Otho recognised it at once; it was the broken half of that ring which he had broken with his betrothed. Alas, he required not such a sign to convince him that that figure, so full of ineffable grace, that touching voice, that simple action so tender in its sentiment, that gift, that blessing, came only from the forsaken and forgiving Leoline.
But Warbeck, alone in his solitary tower, paced to and fro with agitated steps. Deep, undying wrath at his brother's falsehood mingled with one burning, one delicious hope. He confessed now that he had deceived himself when he thought his passion was no more; was there any longer a bar to his union with Leoline?
In that delicacy which was breathed into him by his love, he had forborne to seek, or to offer her the insult of consolation. He felt that the shock should be borne alone, and yet he pined, he thirsted, to throw himself at her feet.
Nursing these contending thoughts, he was aroused by a knock at his door: he opened it—the passage was thronged by Leoline's maidens; pale, anxious, weeping. Leoline had left the castle with but one female attendant; none knew whither;—they knew too soon. From the hall of Sternfels she had passed over in the dark and inclement night to the valley in which the convent of Bornhofen offered to the weary of spirit and the broken of heart a refuge at the shrine of God.
At daybreak the next morning, Warbeck was at the convent's gate. He saw Leoline: what a change one night of suffering had made in that face, which was the fountain of all loveliness to him! He clasped her in his arms; he wept; he urged all that love could urge: he besought her to accept that heart which had never wronged her memory by a thought. "Oh, Leoline! didst thou not say once that these arms nursed thy childhood; that this voice soothed thine early sorrows? Ah, trust to them again and for ever. From a love that forsook thee turn to the love that never swerved."
"No," said Leoline; "no. What would the chivalry of which thou art the boast—what would they say of thee, wert thou to wed one affianced and deserted, who tarried years for another, and brought to thine arms only that heart which he had abandoned? No; and even if thou, as I know thou wouldst be, wert callous to such wrong of thy high name, shall I bring to thee a broken heart and bruised spirit? shalt thou wed sorrow and not joy? and shall sighs that will not cease, and tears that may not be dried, be the only dowry of thy bride? Thou, too, for whom all blessings should be ordained? No, forget me; forget thy poor Leoline! She hath nothing but prayers for thee."
In vain Warbeck pleaded; in vain he urged all that passion and truth could urge; the springs of earthly love were for ever dried up in the orphan's heart, and her resolution was immovable—she tore herself from his arms, and the gate of the convent creaked harshly on his ear.
A new and stern emotion now wholly possessed him; though naturally mild and gentle, he cherished anger, when once it was aroused, with the strength of a calm mind. Leoline's tears, her sufferings, her wrongs, her uncomplaining spirit, the change already stamped upon her face, all cried aloud to him for vengeance. "She is an orphan,"