614 THE BLACK MASK. 



some moments, they would both willingly have spoken, and felt their 

 minutes were few, but their very endeavours rendered the difficulty 

 greater ; at length, drawing her more closely to him, as he placed one 

 arm round her, he asked " Will you then soon forget me shall I be 

 no more recollected?" "No, no;" said she, interrupting him, hur- 

 riedly ; " But will you return, as you have already promised ?" " I 

 do intend, but then " " What then?" cried she, after a pause, 

 expecting he would finish his sentence. He seemed but a moment to 

 struggle with some strong feeling, and at last spoke as if he had made 

 up his mind to a decided and fixed resolve. " It were better you knew 

 all I cannot that is I may not " her eyes grew tearful as he 

 spoke he looked then added " I will return at all hazards but 

 first promise to wear this for my sake, it was a present from the 

 emperor ;" saying which, and unfastening the breast of his kurtka, he 

 took from round his neck a gold chain to which was fastened a seal ring 

 bearing the initial J ; " Wear this/' said he, " at least till we meet 

 again :" for she hesitated, and needed the qualification he made, of its 

 being one day restored, ere she accepted so valuable a present. 



A servant now entered to say that the baron was already mounted 

 and waiting ; their adieus were soon spoken, and the next instant the 

 horses were heard galloping over the causeway which led towards the 

 road to Vienna. She gazed after them till the branches of the dark 

 wood closed around them, and then saw them no more. The baron 

 returned not till late in the evening, and spoke only of the day's sport, 

 and merely once alluded to the stranger, and that but passingly ; the 

 following day came, and there was nothing to convince her that the 

 two preceding ones had not been as a dream; so rapidly had they 

 passed, and yet so many events seemed crowded into this short space. 

 The chain she wore alone remained, to assure her of the reality of the 

 past. 



Days, weeks, and even months, rolled on, and although the count 

 had promised to write, yet no letter ever reached them, and now the 

 winter was long past and it was already midsummer, when the baron 

 and his daughter were strolling one evening along a narrow path which 

 flanked the Danube, j It was the hour of sunset, and all was quiet and 

 peaceful as the grave ; the very birds were hushed upon the boughs, 

 and no sound was heard save the gentle ripple of that river whose 

 treacherous surface so lately was borne on with the dread roaring of a 

 cataract. As they watched the curling eddies broken upon the rocks, 

 and then floating in bubbles so silently, they stood by the spot where, 

 months before, the stranger had crossed the Danube. " I wonder," 

 said the Baron, " that he never wrote. Did he not promise to do so ?" 

 " Yes," replied she, " he did ; but at the same time spoke of the possi- 

 bility of his absence from Vienna, perhaps with his regiment, which was, 

 I believe, in Gratz. And then, too, w r e know the courier from Buda is 

 not too punctual in his visits to our valley/' '< And, in short," said the 

 Baron, you could find at least a hundred reasons for your friend not 

 keeping his promise, rather than for a moment suspect the real one 

 that he has forgotten us. Ah, my poor child, I fear you know not how 

 little, such a meeting as ours was, will impress the mind of one who 

 lives in courts and camps, the favoured and honoured of his sovereign. 

 The titled Graf of Austria will think, if he ever even returns to the 

 circumstance in his memory, that he did the poor Hungarian but too 



