He disposed of the lamp he had just lighted, and then, with an
expression as inscrutable as ever, he stood looking down upon her.
While this scene was being enacted, I marked through the open portal
of the cabin--in one of those strange distractions that occur to us
amidst the most intense feelings of our lives--the stars above us
growing brighter and brighter as the shades of the twilight deepened.
Suddenly turning from the couch, he also, at a stride, stood in full
view of those bright revelations of the darkness; but his eye sought
them with no such abstracted regard as mine. Fixedly and sternly he
seemed to be watching among them some portentous index of fate. Soon
a change came over his countenance, and he resumed his place beside
the scarcely breathing form. Then the fountains of the great deep
within him were broken up, and the rushing torrent of its emotions shook
his whole frame and convulsed his features. Stooping, he kissed the
insensible girl passionately, again and again, and he would, I believe,
have clasped her to his bosom if I, fearing for her the effects of his
stormy transports, had not caught his arm.
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