She was not
looking toward him; but she saw him and turned to face him. Hers
was the advantage; for she had known, for some hours, of his
presence in Vincennes, and had prepared herself to meet him
courageously and with maidenly reserve.
There is no safety, however, where Love lurks. Neither Beverley
nor Alice was as much agitated at Hamilton, yet they both forgot,
what he remembered, that a hundred grim frontier soldiers were
looking on. Hamilton had his personal and official dignity to
sustain, and he fairly did it, under what a pressure of
humiliating and surprising circumstances we can fully comprehend.
Not so with the two young people, standing as it were in a
suddenly bestowed and incomparable happiness, on the verge of a
new life, each to the other an unexpected, unhoped-for
resurrection from the dead. To them there was no universe save the
illimitable expanse of their love. In that moment of meeting, all
that they had suffered on account of love was transfused and
poured forth,--a glowing libation for love's sake,--a flood before
which all barriers broke.
Father Beret was looking on with a strange fire in his eyes, and
what he feared would happen, did happen. Alice let the flag fall
at Hamilton's feet, when Beverley came near her smiling that
great, glad smile, and with a joyous cry leaped into his
outstretched arms.
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