Henrietta Temple: A Love Story

  CHAPTER VIII.

  _A Strange Dream_.

  RESTLESS are the dreams of the lover that is young. Ferdinand Arminestarted awake from the agony of a terrible slumber. He had been walkingin a garden with Henrietta Temple, her hand was clasped in his, hereyes fixed on the ground, as he whispered delicious words. His facewas flushed, his speech panting and low. Gently he wound his vacant armround her graceful form; she looked up, her speaking eyes met his, andtheir trembling lips seemed about to cling into a------

  When lo! the splendour of the garden faded, and all seemed changed anddim; instead of the beautiful arched walks, in which a moment beforethey appeared to wander, it was beneath the vaulted roof of some templethat they now moved; instead of the bed of glowing flowers from whichhe was about to pluck an offering for her bosom, an altar rose, from thecentre of which upsprang a quick and lurid tongue of fire. The dreamergazed upon his companion, and her form was tinted with the dusky hue ofthe flame, and she held to her countenance a scarf, as if pressed by theunnatural heat. Great fear suddenly came over him. With haste, yetwith tenderness, he himself withdrew the scarf from the face of hiscompanion, and this movement revealed the visage of Miss Grandison.

  Ferdinand Armine awoke and started up in his bed. Before him stillappeared the unexpected figure. He jumped out of bed, he gazed upon theform with staring eyes and open mouth. She was there, assuredly she wasthere; it was Katherine, Katherine his betrothed, sad and reproachful.The figure faded before him; he advanced with outstretched hand; in hisdesperation he determined to clutch the escaping form: and he foundin his grasp his dressing-gown, which he had thrown over the back of achair.

  'A dream, and but a dream, after all,' he muttered to himself; 'and yeta strange one.'

  His brow was heated; he opened the casement. It was still night; themoon had vanished, but the stars were still shining. He recalled with aneffort the scene with which he had become acquainted yesterday for thefirst time. Before him, serene and still, rose the bowers of Ducie.And their mistress? That angelic form whose hand he had clasped in hisdream, was not then merely a shadow. She breathed, she lived, and underthe same roof. Henrietta Temple was at this moment under the same roofas himself: and what were her slumbers? Were they wild as his own, orsweet and innocent as herself? Did his form flit over her closed visionat this charmed hour, as hers had visited his? Had it been scared awayby an apparition as awful? Bore anyone to her the same relation asKatherine Grandison to him? A fearful surmise, that had occurred to himnow for the first time, and which it seemed could never again quit hisbrain. The stars faded away, the breath of morn was abroad, the chantof birds arose. Exhausted in body and in mind, Ferdinand Armine flunghimself upon his bed, and soon was lost in slumbers undisturbed as thetomb.