th
impatience; and yet I was sure that she was worthy; I had seen her books,
read her verses, and thus, in a sense, divined the soul of my mistress.
But on her side, it struck me almost cold. Of me, she knew nothing but
my bodily favour; she was drawn to me as stones fall to the earth; the
laws that rule the earth conducted her, unconsenting, to my arms; and I
drew back at the thought of such a bridal, and began to be jealous for
myself. It was not thus that I desired to be loved. And then I began to
fall into a great pity for the girl herself. I thought how sharp must be
her mortification, that she, the student, the recluse, Felipe's saintly
monitress, should have thus 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 falling 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 h