"How very cold!" I exclaimed, holding it between both my own, with the
vain idea of warming it. "What can be the reason? It is really
deathlike!"
"The extremities die first, they say," answered Zenobia, laughing. "And
so you kiss this poor, despised, rejected hand! Well, my dear friend,
I thank you. You have reserved your homage for the fallen. Lip of man
will never touch my hand again. I intend to become a Catholic, for the
sake of going into a nunnery. When you next hear of Zenobia, her face
will be behind the black veil; so look your last at it now,--for all is
over. Once more, farewell!"
She withdrew her hand, yet left a lingering pressure, which I felt long
afterwards. So intimately connected as I had been with perhaps the
only man in whom she was ever truly interested, Zenobia looked on me as
the representative of all the past, and was conscious that, in bidding
me adieu, she likewise took final leave of Hollingsworth, and of this
whole epoch of her life. Never did her beauty shine out more
lustrously than in the last glimpse that I had of her. She departed,
and was soon hidden among the trees.
But, whether it was the strong
impression of the foregoing scene, or whatever else the cause, I was
affected with a fantasy that Zenobia had not actually gone, but was
still hovering about the spot and haunting it. I seemed to feel her
eyes upon me. It was as if the vivid coloring of her character had
left a brilliant stain upon the air. By degrees, however, the
impression grew less distinct. I flung myself upon the fallen leaves
at the base of Eliot's pulpit. The sunshine withdrew up the tree
trunks and flickered on the topmost boughs; gray twilight made the wood
obscure; the stars brightened out; the pendent boughs became wet with
chill autumnal dews. But I was listless, worn out with emotion on my
own behalf and sympathy for others, and had no heart to leave my
comfortless lair beneath the rock.
I must have fallen asleep, and had a dream, all the circumstances of
which utterly vanished at the moment when they converged to some
tragical catastrophe, and thus grew too powerful for the thin sphere of
slumber that enveloped them. Starting from the ground, I found the
risen moon shining upon the rugged face of the rock, and myself all in
a tremble.