Chapter XXV

I, once, recurring to my youth, had said
Of Elbert, that he soon, fulfilling plans
Long form’d, would join me here in Germany.

“Why,” Alice cried, “to think you know so well
Our Elbert!”
“Yours?” I ask’d.
“Ours,” Edith said,
“Ay, ay; our families have been friends for years.”
But spite her careless tone, her eyes appear’d,
Slipping through lashes long, to shun my own.

And why was this?—And why, too, had she flush’d?—
What subtle weapon had been used to cut
Beneath the surface of her mien, and bring
The heart-blood from its core?
Then I recall’d
How Elbert’s moods, of late, had hid themselves
In strange far mists of fancy.—Could it be
That Edith, she was his?—And he, my friend,
Was he the one then that had caged her love,
And placed it where my soul in reaching forth
Could sense but bars of chill indifference?—
I could not ask her nor her sister this;
Nor even Elbert’s now, for in the week
When first I met her, she had sail’d for home.
But soon, like worms that would not wait for death,
Fear-fretted jealousies clung round the form
Of dying hope that now prized Edith more,
To feel that Elbert too had prized her so.