My alarm melted away as I held her thus,--nay, I would not, if I could, have recalled her _yet_ to life; I was forgetful, I was unheeding, I was unconscious of all things else,--a few broken and passionate words escaped my lips, but even they ceased when I felt her breath just stirring and mingling with my own.

It seemed to me as if all living kind but ourselves had, by a spell, departed from the earth, and we were left alone with the breathless and inaudible Nature from which spring the love and the life of all things.
Isora slowly recovered; her eyes in opening dwelt upon mine; her blood rushed at once to her cheek, and as suddenly left it hueless as before.
She rose from my embrace, but I still extended my arms towards her; and words over which I had no control, and of which now I have no remembrance, rushed from my lips.

Still pale, and leaning against the side of the arbour, Isora heard me, as--confused, incoherent, impetuous, but still intelligible to her--my released heart poured itself forth.
And when I had ceased, she turned her face towards me, and my blood seemed at once frozen in its channel.

Anguish, deep ineffable anguish, was depicted upon every feature; and when she strove at last to speak, her lips quivered so violently that, after a vain effort, she ceased abruptly.

I again approached; I seized her hand, which I covered with my kisses.
"Will you not answer me, Isora ?" said I, trembling.