CHAPTER VII. THE LADY'S LETTER

Is not the lover a prophet? He that fervently desires may well be one;
his hurried nature is alive with warmth to break the possible blow: and
if his fears were not needed they were shadows; and if fulfilled, was
he not convinced of his misfortune by a dark anticipation that rarely
erred? Descending the hills, he remembered several omens: the sun had
sunk when he looked down on the villas and clustered houses, not an
edge of the orb had been seen; the admiral's quarters in the broad-faced
hotel had worn an appearance resembling the empty house of yesterday;
the encounter with the fellow on the rocks had a bad whisper of impish
tripping. And what moved Carinthia to speak of going on?

A letter was handed to Chillon in the hall of the admiral's hotel, where
his baggage had already been delivered. The manager was deploring the
circumstance that his rooms were full to the roof, when Chillon said:

'Well, we must wash and eat'; and Carinthia, from watching her brother's
forehead during his perusal of the letter, declared her readiness for
anything. He gave her the letter to read by herself while preparing
to sit at table, unwilling to ask her for a further tax on her
energies--but it was she who had spoken of going on! He thought of it as
of a debt she had contracted and might be supposed to think payable to
their misfortune.

She read off the first two sentences.

'We can have a carriage here, Chillon; order a carriage; I shall get as
much sleep in a carriage as in a bed: I shall enjoy driving at night,'
she said immediately, and strongly urged it and forced him to yield, the
manager observing that a carriage could be had.

In the privacy of her room, admiring the clear flowing hand, she read
the words, delicious in their strangeness to her, notwithstanding the
heavy news, as though they were sung out of a night-sky:

'Most picturesque of Castles!

May none these marks efface,
For they appeal from Tyranny...'

'We start at noon to-day. Sailing orders have been issued, and I could
only have resisted them in my own person by casting myself overboard.
I go like the boat behind the vessel. You were expected yesterday, at
latest this morning. I have seen boxes in the hall, with a name on them
not foreign to me. Why does the master tarry? Sir, of your valliance you
should have held to your good vow,--quoth the damozel, for now you see
me sore perplexed and that yo