"I love him I love him! I love him!" Sylvia was whispering to herself now, even as preparations were being made to remove Bevill from this old, dark, and weird hall that reeked of the memories of innumerable cruelties; Francbois being already removed. "I love him. And--and he thought to save me. He deemed I needed assistance, rescue. Now it is he who needs earthly salvation, he whose impending lot cries for prompt succour. Ah, well! help, succour, shall be forthcoming unless I die in an attempt to obtain it. Oh!" she gasped, her hands to her breast, "they are leading him away--from me!"
With one swift movement she was by Bevill's side; a moment later she was clasped to his heart; another, and he was murmuring words of love and farewell in her ears.
"Adieu! Adieu, Sylvia," he said. "Nay, my sweet!" he whispered, "let fall no tears; weep not for me. I have won your love; the happiest hours of my life have come. Since I may be no more by your side--as yet--I have the thoughts of you to solace me; the thought, the pride of knowing I have won your love, that I alone dwell in your heart."
While, seeing that De Violaine in his delicacy had turned his eyes away, and was gazing into the great empty fireplace until this sad parting should be made; seeing, too, that even the rough troopers had turned their eyes from them, he embraced Sylvia for the first time--the first time and, as he feared, the last.
"I love you," he whispered. "Whate'er betide, remember my last words are these. Remember that, if the worst befalls, my last thought shall be of you, my last prayer for you, your name the last word on my lips. Farewell."
The weather that, through the latter part of June and July, had held so fine, had changed at last. With that persistency which for centuries has caused all in the Netherlands to say that their climate is the worst in Europe, or at least the most unreliable, a rainy season had again set in accompanied by considerable cold. The rivers were so swollen now that, in the case of all the great ones, the usually slow, turgid streams had turned into swirling volumes of water, resembling those which, in mountainous regions, pour forth from their icy sources; even the smaller waterways had overflowed their banks and submerged the low-lying fields around them. Thus, except in some particular instances, all military operations had come to an end for the time; the thousands of soldiers who composed the rival armies, and were drawn from half the countries in Europe, lay idle in their tents--when they had any--or in some town they had possessed themselves of; or, in many cases, on the rain-soaked ground.