In silence, slowly we walked down to the drawbridge, where the
beautiful landscape opened before us. “And so you were thinking of the night I came here?” she almost
whispered. “Are you glad I came?”

“Delighted, dear Carmilla,” I answered. “And you asked for the picture you think like me, to hang in your
room,” she murmured with a sigh, as she drew her arm closer about my
waist, and let her pretty head sink upon my shoulder. “How romantic you
are, Carmilla,” I said. “Whenever you tell me your story, it will be
made up chiefly of some one great romance.”

She kissed me silently. “I am sure, Carmilla, you have been in love; that there is, at this
moment, an affair of the heart going on.”

“I have been in love with no one, and never shall,” she whispered,
“unless it should be with you.”

How beautiful she looked in the moonlight! Shy and strange was the look with which she quickly hid her face in my
neck and hair, with tumultuous sighs, that seemed almost to sob, and
pressed in mine a hand that trembled. Her soft cheek was glowing against mine. “Darling, darling,” she
murmured, “I live in you; and you would die for me, I love you so.”

I started from her. She was gazing on me with eyes from which all fire, all meaning had
flown, and a face colorless and apathetic. “Is there a chill in the air, dear?” she said drowsily. “I almost
shiver; have I been dreaming? Let us come in. Come; come; come in.”

“You look ill, Carmilla; a little faint. You certainly must take some
wine,” I said. “Yes. I will. I’m better now. I shall be quite well in a few minutes. Yes, do give me a little wine,” answered Carmilla, as we approached the
door. “Let us look again for a moment; it is the last time, perhaps, I shall
see the moonlight with you.”

“How do you feel now, dear Carmilla? Are you really better?” I asked. I was beginning to take alarm, lest she should have been stricken with
the strange epidemic that they said had invaded the country about us. “Papa would be grieved beyond measure,” I added, “if he thought you
were ever so little ill, without immediately letting us know. We have a
very skilful doctor near us, the physician who was with papa today.”

“I’m sure he is. I know how kind you all are; but, dear child, I am
quite well again. There is nothing ever wrong with me, but a little
weakness. People say I am languid; I am incapable of exertion; I can scarcely
walk as far as a child of three years old: and every now and then the
little strength I have falters, and I become as you have just seen me. But after all I am very easily set up again; in a moment I am perfectly
myself. See how I have recovered.”

So, indeed, she had; and she and I talked a great deal, and very
animated she was; and the remainder of that evening passed without any
recurrence of what I called her infatuations. I mean her crazy talk and
looks, which embarrassed, and even frightened me. But there occurred that night an event which gave my thoughts quite a
new turn, and seemed to startle even Carmilla’s languid nature into
momentary energy. VI. A Very Strange Agony


When we got into the drawing room, and had sat down to our coffee and
chocolate, although Carmilla did not take any, she seemed quite herself
again, and Madame, and Mademoiselle De Lafontaine, joined us, and made
a little card party, in the course of which papa came in for what he
called his “dish of tea.”

When the game was over he sat down beside Carmilla on the sofa, and
asked her, a little anxiously, whether she had heard from her mother
since her arrival. She answered “No.”

He then asked whether she knew where a letter would reach her at
present. “I cannot tell,” she answered ambiguously, “but I have been thinking of
leaving you; you have been already too hospitable and too kind to me. I
have given you an infinity of trouble, and I should wish to take a
carriage tomorrow, and post in pursuit of her; I know where I shall
ultimately find her, although I dare not yet tell you.”

“But you must not dream of any such thing,” exclaimed my father, to my
great relief. “We can’t afford to lose you so, and I won’t consent to
your leaving us, except under the care of your mother, who was so good
as to consent to your remaining with us till she should herself return. I should be quite happy if I knew that you heard from her: but this
evening the accounts of the progress of the mysterious disease that has
invaded our neighborhood, grow even more alarming; and my beautiful
guest, I do feel the responsibility, unaided by advice from your
mother, very much. But I shall do my best; and one thing is certain,
that you must not think of leaving us without her distinct direction to
that effect. We should suffer too much in parting from you to consent
to it easily.”

“Thank you, sir, a thousand times for your hospitality,” she answered,
smiling bashfully. “You have all been too kind to me; I have seldom
been so happy in all my life before, as in your beautiful chateau,
under your care, and in the society of your dear daughter.”

So he gallantly, in his old-fashioned way, kissed her hand, smiling and
pleased at her little speech. I accompanied Carmilla as usual to her room, and sat and chatted with
her while she was preparing for bed. “Do you think,” I said at length, “that you will ever confide fully in
me?”

She turned round smiling, but made no answer, only continued to smile
on me. “You won’t answer that?” I said. “You can’t answer pleasantly; I ought
not to have asked you.”

“You were quite right to ask me that, or anything. You do not know how
dear you are to me, or you could not think any confidence too great to
look for. But I am under vows, no nun half so awfully, and I dare not tell my
story yet, even to you. The time is very near when you shall know
everything. You will think me cruel, very selfish, but love is always
selfish; the more ardent the more selfish. How jealous I am you cannot
know. You must come with me, loving me, to death; or else hate me and
still come with me. and _hating_ me through death and after. There is
no such word as indifference in my apathetic nature.”

“Now, Carmilla, you are going to talk your wild nonsense again,” I said
hastily. “Not I, silly little fool as I am, and full of whims and fancies; for
your sake I’ll talk like a sage. Were you ever at a ball?”

“No; how you do run on. What is it like? How charming it must be.”

“I almost forget, it is years ago.”

I laughed. “You are not so old. Your first ball can hardly be forgotten yet.”

“I remember everything about it—with an effort. I see it all, as divers
see what is going on above them, through a medium, dense, rippling, but
transparent. There occurred that night what has confused the picture,
and made its colours faint. I was all but assassinated in my bed,
wounded here,” she touched her breast, “and never was the same since.”

“Were you near dying?”

“Yes, very—a cruel love—strange love, that would have taken my life. Love will have its sacrifices. No sacrifice without blood.