confessed an overweening
weakness for a man with whom she had never exchanged a word. And at the
coming of pity, all other thoughts were swallowed up; and I longed only
to find and console and reassure her; to tell her how wholly her love
was returned on my side, and how her choice, even if blindly made, was
not unworthy.

The next day it was glorious weather; depth upon depth of blue
over-canopied the mountains; the sun shone wide; and the wind in the
trees and the many fallen torrents in the mountains filled the air with
delicate and haunting music. Yet I was prostrated with sadness. My heart
wept for the sight of Olalla, as a child weeps for its mother. I sat
down on a boulder on the verge of the low cliffs that bound the plateau
to the north. Thence I looked down into the wooded valley of a stream,
where no foot came. In the mood I was in, it was even touching to behold
the place untenanted; it lacked Olalla; and I thought of the delight and
glory of a life passed wholly with her in that strong air, and among
these rugged and lovely surroundings, at first with a whimpering
sentiment, and then again with such a fiery joy that I seemed to grow
in strength and stature, like a Samson.

And then suddenly I was aware of Olalla drawing near. She appeared out
of a grove of cork-trees, and came straight towards me; and I stood up
and waited. She seemed in her walking a creature of such life and fire
and lightness as amazed me; yet she came quietly and slowly. Her energy
was in the slowness; but for inimitable strength, I felt she would have
run, she would have flown to me. Still, as she approached, she kept her
eyes lowered to the ground; and when she had drawn quite near, it was
without one glance that she addressed me. At the first note of her voice
I started. It was for this I had been waiting; this was the last test of
my love. And lo, her enunciation was precise and clear, not lisping and
incomplete like that of her family; and the voice, though deeper than
usual with women, was still both youthful and womanly. She spoke in a
rich chord; golden contralto strains mingled with hoarseness, as the red
threads were mingled with the brown among her tresses. It was not only a
voice that spoke to my heart directly; but it spoke to me of her. And
yet her words immediately plunged me back upon despair.

"You will go away," she said, "to-day."

Her example broke the bonds of my speech; I felt as lightened of a
weight, or as if