"Girl!" cried _Henri_, his eyes blazing with a sudden light, "what a world of love your tender breast conceals! Yes, you will know how to love as I desire,--warmly, nobly, overpoweringly. Come, kiss me once more; it is so lonely here: no one is watching us. You cannot kiss yet, Cornelia. When I return I will teach you." "When you return? Are you going away again?" "This very day; but it is for the last time, then I will stay with you." "Where are you going?" "To attend the marriage ceremonies between Princess Ottilie and our prince. Only a few weeks more, and I shall be wholly yours." "But you will write to me now?" "Every day. My sweet one, did my long silence grieve you?" "Oh, deeply!" sighed Cornelia, and her eyes filled with tears. "How I have wept for you!" "Poor angel! If I had known how you love me, I would never have tortured you so; but I will make amends for it. Do you believe I can?" "A thousandfold!" laughed Cornelia, amid her tears. "And now come, Cornelia; I will accompany you home, for I must prepare for my journey." "No, _Heinrich_; I cannot appear before others with you now. Go alone, and leave me here a half-hour longer, until I have collected my thoughts; such sweet sounds must echo through the stillness." "You are right. Oh, if I could only stay with you! Farewell. Do not look at me with that earnest gaze, or I cannot turn away. I feel as if I were a banished man, let me press you to my heart once more. Now send me away, or I cannot leave you!" There was a rustling in the branches. "Hark! What was that? Has any one been watching us?" "It was the evening breeze that warns you to go if you must set out on your journey to-day. Go, my beloved; think of our meeting, not of our farewell. I will shut my eyes, that they may not detain you." "Then, farewell, until I have discharged my duty to the prince. Do not fly away to heaven, my angel!" When Cornelia again raised her eyes, _Henri_ had departed. She watched him striding rapidly along, then clasped her hands upon her breast, as if to conceal the overwhelming burden of her happiness. A deep stillness surrounded her; the sun had set, the birds were silent. Suddenly a dark figure appeared as if it had started from the earth, a tall, handsome man with a broad scar upon his brow, clad in the long coat of a priest. He fixed his dark eyes upon Cornelia for a moment, and then walked silently on. "Who was that?" she murmured, in terror. "Why did he look at me so strangely? What had the gloomy apparition to do with this bright hour?" She now felt the chill of the night air for the first time, shivered, and overwhelmed by a haunting dread, hurried swiftly between the graves towards home. XV. A ROYAL MARRIAGE. "H--, May 15th.