tenance
calm and pale, and deeply impressed with thought, even to sadness. His
features, more majestic and regular than Otho's, rarely varied in their
expression. More resolute even than Otho, he was less impetuous; more
impassioned, he was also less capricious.

The brothers remained silent after Leoline had left them. Otho
carelessly braced on his sword, that he had laid aside on the grass;
but Warbeck gathered up the flowers that had been touched by the soft
hand of Leoline, and placed them in his bosom.

The action disturbed Otho; he bit his lip, and changed colour; at
length he said, with a forced laugh:

"It must be confessed, brother, that you carry your affection for our
fair cousin to a degree that even relationship seems scarcely to
warrant."

"It is true," said Warbeck, calmly: "I love her with a love surpassing
that of blood."

"How!" said Otho, fiercely: "do you dare to think of Leoline as a
bride?"

"Dare!" repeated Warbeck, turning yet paler than his wonted hue.

"Yes, I have said the word! Know, Warbeck, that I, too, love Leoline;
I, too, claim her as my bride; and never, while I can wield a
sword--never, while I wear the spurs of knighthood, will I render my
claim to a living rival. Even," he added (sinking his voice), "though
that rival be my brother!"

Warbeck answered not; his very soul seemed stunned; he gazed long and
wistfully on his brother, and then, turning his face away, ascended the
rock without uttering a single word.

This silence startled Otho. Accustomed to vent every emotion of his
own, he could not comprehend the forbearance of his brother; he knew
his high and brave nature too well to imagine that it arose from fear.
Might it not be contempt, or might he not, at this moment, intend to
seek their father; and, the first to proclaim his love for the orphan,
advance, also, the privilege of the elder born? As these suspicions
flashed across him, the haughty Otho strode to his brother's side, and
laying his hand on his arm, said: "Whither goes thou? and dost thou
consent to surrender Leoline?"

"Does she love thee, Otho?" answered Warbeck, breaking silence at last;
and his voice spoke so deep an anguish, that it arrested the passions
of Otho even at their height.

"It is thou who art now silent," continued Warbeck; "speak, doth she
love thee, and has her lip confessed it?"

"I have believed that she loved me," faltered Otho; "but she is of
maiden bearing, and her lip,