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When I heard her piteous demands, while with disordered dress, dishevelled
hair, and aghast looks, she wrung her hands--the idea shot across me is
she also mad?--"Sweet one," and I folded her to my heart, "better repose
than wander further;--rest--my beloved, I will make a fire--you are
chill."
"
Rest!" she cried, "repose! you rave, Lionel! If you delay we are lost;
come, I pray you, unless you would cast me off for ever."
That Idris, the princely born, nursling of wealth and luxury, should have
come through the tempestuous winter-night from her regal abode, and
standing at my lowly door, conjure me to fly with her through darkness and
storm--was surely a dream--again her plaintive tones, the sight of her
loveliness assured me that it was no vision. Looking timidly around, as if
she feared to be overheard, she whispered: "I have discovered--to-morrow
--that is, to-day--already the to-morrow is come--before dawn,
foreigners, Austrians, my mother's hirelings, are to carry me off to
Germany, to prison, to marriage--to anything, except you and my brother
-
-take me away, or soon they will be here!"
I was frightened by her vehemence, and imagined some mistake in her
incoherent tale; but I no longer hesitated to obey her. She had come by
herself from the Castle, three long miles, at midnight, through the heavy
snow; we must reach Englefield Green, a mile and a half further, before we
could obtain a chaise. She told me, that she had kept up her strength and
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