Do you
wonder that I am sometimes sad at these recollections? that my full
heart will sometimes speak in my face?"
"Nay, it is but natural," answered the countess, with a deep sigh.
General Bezan was thinking of his own anguish of heart, of the
peculiarities of his own situation, of her who was far away, yet now
present in his heart, else he would have noticed more particularly
the appearance of her whom he addressed. The reader would have seen
at once that she received his declaration of love for another like a
death blow, that she sat there and heard him go on as one would sit
under torture; yet by the strong force of her character subduing
almost entirely all outward emotions. There was no disguising it to
a careful observer, she, the Countess Moranza, loved him!
From the first meeting she had been struck by his noble figure, his
melancholy yet handsome and intellectual face, and knowing the
gallantry of his services to the queen, was struck by the modest
bearing of a soldier so renowned in battle. After refusing half of
the gallants of the court, and deeming herself impregnable to the
shafts of Cupid, she had at last lost her heart to this man. But
that was not the point that made her suffer so now, it was that he
loved another; that he could never sustain the tender relation to
her which her heart suggested.
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