The bashful young baron imagined
all sorts of romantic and perilous incidents in which he might
constitute himself her knight and protector, and show such brave and
tender devotion to her as he had read of in the old books of chivalry;
and which might lead up to the avowal he was burning to make, yet dared
not. It never occurred to him that the look in his dark eyes whenever
they rested on her face, the tone of his voice when he addressed her,
the deep sighs he vainly sought to stifle, and the tender, eager care
with which he strove to anticipate her every wish had spoken for him,
as plainly as any words could do; and that, though he had not dared to
breathe one syllable of his passionate love to Isabelle, she knew it,
rejoiced in it, and was proud of it, and that it filled her with a
delicious, rapturous joy, such as she had never felt before, or even
dreamed of.
The morning began to break--the narrow band of pale light on the
horizon, which was growing rapidly brighter and assuming a rosy tinge,
was reflected here and there in the little pools of water that shone
like bits of a broken mirror scattered over the ground--distant sounds
were heard, and columns of smoke rising into the still morning air
proved that even in this desolate, God-forsaken part of the Landes there
were human habitations to be found.
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