“Recline on this sofa, then,” said Fitzeustace, reaching another pillow to make the couch easier; “and I will play some of those Irish tunes which you admire so much.” Eloise reclined on the sofa, and Fitzeustace, seated on the floor, began to play; the melancholy plaintiveness of his music touched Eloise; she sighed, and concealed her tears in her handkerchief. At length she sunk into a profound sleep: still Fitzeustace continued playing, noticing not that she slumbered. He now perceived that she spoke, but in so low a tone, that he knew she slept. He approached. She lay wrapped in sleep; a sweet and celestial smile played upon her countenance, and irradiated her features with a tenfold expression of etheriality. Suddenly the visions of her slumbers appeared to have changed; the smile yet remained, but its expression was melancholy; tears stole gently from under her eyelids:--she sighed. Ah! with what eagerness of ecstasy did Fitzeustace lean over her form! He dared not speak, he dared not move; but pressing a ringlet of hair which had escaped its band, to his lips, waited silently. “Yes, yes; I think--it may----” at last she muttered; but so confusedly, as scarcely to be distinguishable. Fitzeustace remained rooted in rapturous attention, listening. “I thought, I thought he looked as if he could love me,” scarcely articulated the sleeping Eloise. “Perhaps, though he may not love me, he may allow me to love him.--Fitzeustace!” On a sudden, again were changed the visions of her slumbers; terrified she started from sleep, and cried, “Fitzeustace!” CHAPTER XII. For love is heaven, and heaven is love. Lay of the Last Minstrel. Needless were it to expatiate on their transports; they loved each other, and that is enough for those who have felt like Eloise and Fitzeustace. One night, rather later indeed than it was Mountfort’s custom to return from Geneva, Eloise and Fitzeustace sat awaiting his arrival. At last it was too late any longer even to expect him; and Eloise was about to bid Fitzeustace good-night, when a knock at the door aroused them. Instantly, with a hurried and disordered step, his clothes stained with blood, his countenance convulsed and pallid as death, in rushed Mountfort. An involuntary exclamation of surprise burst from the terrified Eloise. “What--what is the matter?” “Oh, nothing, nothing!” answered Mountfort, in a tone of hurried, yet desperate agony. The wildness of his looks contradicted his assertions. Fitzeustace, who had been inquiring whether he was wounded, on finding that he was not, flew to Eloise. “Oh! go, go!” she exclaimed. “Something, I am convinced, is wrong. Tell me, dear Mountfort, what it is--in pity tell me.”