Two hours have elapsed since the nurse left me, supposing me to be asleep; no one has intruded, and I have employed the last hour in retracing to you the vicissitudes of this eventful day. You, who warned me of my fate, should learn the truth of your fatal prophecy. My father’s too; but he is avenged! and I have already expiated a deception, which, however innocent, was still _deception_.
I had written thus far, when some one tapped at my door, and the next moment the priest entered: he was not an hour arrived, and with his usual kindness came to inquire after my health, expressing much surprise at its alteration, which he said was visible in my looks. “But, it is scarcely to be wondered at,” he added: “a man who complains for two days of a nervous disorder, and yet gallops, as if for life, seven miles in a day more natural to the torrid zone than our polar clime, may have some chance of losing his life, but very little of _losing his disorder_.” He then endeavoured to persuade me to go down with him and take some refreshment, for I had tasted nothing all day, save Glorvina’s draught; but finding me averse to the proposal, he sat with me till he was sent for to the Prince’s room. As soon as he was gone, with that restlessness of body which ever accompanies a wretched mind, I wandered through the deserted rooms of this vast and ruinous edifice, but saw nothing of Glorvina.
The sun had set, all was gloomy and still, I took my hat and in the melancholy maze of twilight, wandered I knew not, cared not whither. I had not, however, strayed far from the ruins, when I perceived the little postboy galloping his foaming mule over the drawbridge, and the next moment saw Glorvina gliding beneath the colonnade (that leads to the chapel) to meet him. I retreated behind a fragment of the ruins, and observed her to take a letter from his hand with an eager and impatient air: when she had looked at the seal, she pressed it to her lips: then by the faint beams of the retreating light, she opened this welcome packet, and putting an enclosed letter in her bosom, endeavoured to read the envelope; but scarcely had her eye glanced over it, than it fell to the earth, while she, covering her face with her hands, seemed to lean against the broken pillar near which she stood for support. Oh! was this an emotion of overwhelming bliss, or chilling disappointment? She again took the paper, and still holding it open in her hand, with a slow step and thoughtful air, returned to the castle; while I flew to the stables under pretence of inquiring from the post-boy if there were any letters for me. The lad said there was but one, and that, the postmaster had told him was an English one for the lady Glorvina. This letter, then, though it could not have been an answer to that I had seen her writing, was doubtless from the mysterious friend, whose friendship, “_like gold, though not sonorous, was indestructible_.”