And again he kissed her eyes and lips, and hung over her inanimate form in agony, gazing on her countenance still lovely although changed, watching every slight convulsion, and varying colour which denoted life still lingering although about to depart.  Once for a moment she revived and recognized his voice; a smile, a last lovely smile, played upon her lips.  He watched beside her for twelve hours and then she died.[56]

CHAPTER X

It was six months after this miserable conclusion to his long nursed hopes that I first saw him.  He had retired to a part of the country where he was not known that he might peacefully indulge his grief.  All the world, by the death of his beloved Elinor, was changed to him, and he could no longer remain in any spot where he had seen her or where her image mingled with the most rapturous hopes had brightened all around with a light of joy which would now be transformed to a darkness blacker than midnight since she, the sun of his life, was set for ever.

He lived for some time never looking on the light of heaven but shrouding his eyes in a perpetual darkness far from all that could remind him of what he had been; but as time softened his grief[57] like a true child of Nature he sought in the enjoyment of her beauties for a consolation in his unhappiness.  He came to a part of the country where he was entirely unknown and where in the deepest solitude he could converse only with his own heart.  He found a relief to his impatient grief in the breezes of heaven and in the sound of waters and woods.  He became fond of riding; this exercise distracted his mind and elevated his spirits; on a swift horse he could for a moment gain respite from the image that else for ever followed him; Elinor on her death bed, her sweet features changed, and the soft spirit that animated her gradually waning into extinction.  For many months Woodville had in vain endeavoured to cast off this terrible remembrance; it still hung on him untill memory was too great a burthen for his loaded soul, but when on horseback the spell that seemingly held him to this idea was snapt; then if he thought of his lost bride he pictured her radiant in beauty; he could hear her voice, and fancy her “a sylvan Huntress by his side,” while his eyes brightened as he thought he gazed on her cherished form.  I had several times seen him ride across the heath and felt angry that my solitude should be disturbed.  It was so long [since] I had spoken to any but peasants that I felt a disagreable sensation at being gazed on by one of superior rank.  I feared also that it might be some one who had seen me before:  I might be recognized, my impostures discovered and I dragged back to a life of worse torture than that I had before endured.  These were dreadful fears and they even haunted my dreams.[58]