But to Kenneth, solitude, and darkness, and the
uncertainty of his mysterious situation were as nothing--he
thought not of them--cared not for them--cared for nought in the
world save the flitting vision which had just glided past him,
and the tokens of her favour which she had bestowed. To grope on
the floor for the buds which she had dropped--to press them to
his lips, to his bosom, now alternately, now together--to rivet
his lips to the cold stones on which, as near as he could judge,
she had so lately stepped--to play all the extravagances which
strong affection suggests and vindicates to those who yield
themselves up to it, were but the tokens of passionate love
common to all ages. But it was peculiar to the times of chivalry
that, in his wildest rapture, the knight imagined of no attempt
to follow or to trace the object of such romantic attachment;
that he thought of her as of a deity, who, having deigned to show
herself for an instant to her devoted worshipper, had again
returned to the darkness of her sanctuary--or as an influential
planet, which, having darted in some auspicious minute one
favourable ray, wrapped itself again in its veil of mist.
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