Читать книгу Jane Seton; or, The King's Advocate. A Scottish Historical Romance онлайн

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He had seen her dancing with Roland Vipont; he had heard those whispers by which the whole court linked their names together as lovers, yet an incontrollable folly or fatality led him blindly on.

"Notwithstanding that we were such good friends when last we met," said he, in his soft and flute-like voice, while bending his fine dark eyes on the green sward, "you have shunned me so much of late, Lady Jane, that I have had no opportunity of begging your permission to renew that conversation in which I presumed first to say—that—that——"

"What?——"

"That I loved you"—his voice sank to a whisper at the abruptness of the declaration.

"Oh! Sir Adam; thou followest a phantom."

Redhall sighed sadly and bitterly.

"There was a time, dearest madam, when I did not think so," he continued slowly and earnestly—"a time when I almost flattered myself that you loved me in return."

"I!" said Jane, faintly.

"Thou," he replied, impressively, fixing upon her his piercing eyes with an expression which fascinated her. "It was in the garden of my lord the abbot of Holyrood, at his mansion near yonder craigs, some nine or ten months ago, about the vesper time; it was a glorious evening, and a broad yellow harvest-moon was shining in the blue heavens, among golden-coloured clouds; the air was pure, and laden with perfume and with the fragrance of yonder orchards, and these fields covered with the grain of a ripe harvest. Abbot Robert had given a supper to Henrico Godscallo, the ambassador who came to offer as a bride Mary of Austria or Mary of Portugal to King James. Oh! thou canst not have forgotten it. We walked together in the garden, and you did me the honour to lean upon my arm. I bent my head towards you, and your beautiful hair touched my forehead. My heart beat like lightning—every vein trembled! Oh! I have never forgotten that night—that hour—the place—the time! You seemed good and kind, merry and gentle with me. I was on the point of declaring myself then—of saying how I loved you—how I worshipped you; and your charming embarrassment seemed to expect the avowal; when the countess's page—yonder black devil with the rings in his ears—approached, and the spell was broken. My God! the same moment, the same soft influences and adorable opportunity have never come again!"