Chapter VI: Part 6

Half an hour later the knight and his squire were in the courtyard, where their horses stood ready for the mount. The little company of the Castle gathered close about their master, watching him as they might have watched some mythical god. Indeed, he was a brave sight, as he stood there in the early sunshine, flashing with armor, a gray plume floating from his helmet, and one of Lenore’s small gloves fastened over his visor as a gage. Lenore beheld this with infinite, gentle pride, as she stood fixing his great lance in its socket. Presently two of the squires helped him to mount to the saddle; and when he was seated, he lifted Lenore up to him to give her good-bye. A few tears ran from her eyes, and rolled silently down his breastplate, on which they gleamed like clustered diamonds. But Lenore wiped them away with her hair, that they might not tarnish the metal of his trappings; and by that act, perhaps, Gerault lost a blessing.

The last kiss that he gave her was a long one, and his last words almost tender. Then, putting her to the ground again, he saluted his mother, though her coldness struck him to the heart; and, after a final farewell to the assembled company, he turned and gave the sign of departure to Courtoise.

Spur struck flank. At the same instant, the two horses darted forward to the drawbridge, across which they had presently clattered. Alixe, who had been a silent spectator of the scene of departure, was standing near Lenore; and now she leaned over and would have whispered in the young wife’s ear; but Lenore could not have heard her had she spoken. The child stood like a statue, blind to everything save to the blaze of passing armor, deaf to all but the echo of flying hoofs. Here she stood, in the centre of the courtyard, alone with her strange little life, watching the swift-running steed carry from her all her power of joy. With straining eyes she saw the two figures disappear down the long, winding hill; and when they had gone, and only a lazily rising dust-cloud remained to mark their path, she stayed there still. But presently Eleanore came to her side and took her cold hand in a hot pressure. And then, as the two bereft women looked into each other’s eyes, the frozen grief melted at last, and the flood burst upon them in all its overwhelming fury.

_CHAPTER NINE_
THE STORM

For ten days after Gerault’s departure, Lenore led a disastrous mental existence, which she expressed neither by words nor by deeds. In that time no one in the Castle knew how she was rent and torn with anguish, with yearning that had never been satisfied, and with useless regret for a bygone happiness that had not been happy. The silent progress of her grief led her into dark valleys of despair; yet none dreamed in what depths she wandered. She, the woman chaste and pure, dared not try to comprehend all that went on within her. She dared not picture to herself what it was she really longed for so bitterly. The cataclysms that rent her mind in twain were unholy things, and, had she been normal, she might have refused to acknowledge them. The changes in her life had come upon her with such overwhelming swiftness that she had hitherto had no time for analysis; and now that she found herself with a long leisure in which to think, the chaos of her mind seemed hopeless; she despaired of coming again into understanding with herself.

During all these days Madame Eleanore watched her closely, but to little purpose. The calm outward demeanor of the young woman baffled every suspicion of her inward state. Day after day Lenore sat at work in the whirring, noisy spinning-room, toiling upon her tapestry with a diligence and a persistent silence that defied encroachment. Hour after hour her eyes would rest upon the dim, blue sea; for that sea was the only thing that seemed to possess the power of stilling her inward rebellion. Forgetting how the winds could sometimes drive its sparkling surface into a furious stretch of tumbling waters, she dreamed of making her own spirit as placid and as quiet as the ocean. The thought was inarticulate; but it grew, even in the midst of her inward tumult, till in the end it brought her something of the quiet she so sorely needed.

By day and by night, through every hour, in every place, the figure of her husband was always before her. How unspeakably she wanted him, she herself could not have put into words. She knew well that he had promised to come back—“soon.” But when every hour is replete with hidden anguish, can a day be short? Can ten days be less than an eternity? a possible month of delay less than unutterable?

One little oasis Lenore found for herself in this waste of time. Every day she had been accustomed to pray upon her rosary, which was composed of sixty-two white beads. Now, when she had said her morning prayer, she tied a little red string above the first bead. On the second morning it was moved up over the second bead; and so the sacred chain became a still more sacred calendar. How many times did she halt in her prayers to find the thirtieth bead! and how her heart sank when she saw it still so very far from the little line of red!

At the end of the first week of the Seigneur’s absence, it came to Madame Eleanore with a start that Lenore was growing paler and more wan. Then a suspicion of what the young wife was suffering came to the older woman, and she racked her brains to think of possible diversions for the forlorn girl. A hawking party was arranged, which Madame Eleanore herself led, on her good gray horse. And in this every one discovered with some surprise that Lenore could sit a horse as easily as the young squires, and that she managed her bird as well as any man. Alixe, who had always been the one woman in the Castle to make a practice of riding after the dogs, or with hawk on wrist, was filled with delight to find this unexpected companion for her sports; and she decided that henceforth Lenore should take the place of her old companion, Laure, in her life.

The hawking party accomplished part of its purpose, at least; for Lenore returned from the ride with some color in her face and a sparkle in her eyes. She was obliged, however, to take to her bed shortly after reaching the Castle, prostrated by a fatigue that was not natural. Madame hovered over her anxiously all through the night, though she slept more than in any night of late, and rose next morning at the usual hour, much refreshed. That afternoon, when the work was through, madame saw no harm in her riding out with Alixe for an hour, to give a lesson to two young _mués_ that were jessed and belled for the first time. And during this ride the young women made great strides in companionship.

What with new interest in an old pastime thus awakened, and a subject of common delight between her and Alixe, Lenore found the next nine days pass more quickly than the first. On the morning of the thirty-first of the month, however, Lenore had a serious fainting-spell in the spinning-room. She had been at work at her frame for an hour or more, when suddenly it seemed to her that a steel had pierced her heart, and she fell backward in her chair with a cry. The women hurried to her, and after some moments of chafing her hands and temples, and forcing cordials down her throat, she was brought back to consciousness. Her first words were: “Gerault! Gerault!” and then in a still fainter voice: “Save him, Courtoise! He falls!”

Thinking her out of her mind, madame carried her to her bedroom, and, admitting only Alixe with her, quickly undressed the slender body, and laid Lenore in the great bed. Presently she opened her blue eyes, and, looking up into madame’s face, said, in a voice shaking with weakness,—

“It was a dream—a vision—a terrible vision! I saw Gerault—_killed_! My God!” she put her hands to the sides of her head, in the attitude that a terrified woman will take. “I saw him— Ah! But it is gone, now. It is gone. Tell me ’twas a dream!”

Madame and Alixe soothed her, smoothing the hair back from her brow, patting her hands, and giving her all the comfort that they knew. Presently Lenore was calm again, and asked to rise. Madame, however, forbade this, insisting that she should keep to her bed all day; and through the afternoon either she or Alixe remained in the room, sewing, and talking fitfully with Lenore. The young wife, however, seemed inclined to silence. A shadow of melancholy had stolen upon her, and there was a cold clutch at her heart that she did not understand. Eleanore had her own theory in regard to the illness, and Alixe, whatever she might have noticed, had nothing to say about it.

Next morning, the morning of the first of September, Lenore rose to go about her usual tasks, seeming no worse for the attack of the day before, except that her melancholy continued. Work in the spinning-room that day, however, was cut short on account of the heat, which was more oppressive than it had been at any time during the summer. Though the sky was clear and the sun red and luminous, the air was heavy with moisture; the birds flew close to the ground; spiders were busy spinning heavy webs; worms and insects sought the underside of leaves; and all things pointed to a coming storm. At noon two mendicant monks came to the Castle, asking dinner as alms; and when the meal was over, they did not proceed upon their way. The bright blue of the sky was beginning to be obscured by fragments of gathering cloud, and in the infinite distance could be heard low and portentous murmurs. The sense of oppression and of apprehension that comes with the approach of any disturbance of nature was strong in the Castle. At four in the afternoon, madame had prayers said in the chapel, and there was a short mass for safety during the coming storm. After this service, Lenore, with Alixe and Roland de Bertaux, went out to walk upon the terrace that overlooked the water. The sight before them was impressive. The whole sea, from shore to far horizon, lay gray and glassy, flattened by the weight of air that overhung it, heavy and hot with moisture. The sun was gone, and the heart of the sky palpitated with purple. Flocks of gulls wheeled round the Castle towers, screaming, now and then, with some uneasy dread for their safety. The air grew more and more heavy, till one was obliged to breathe in gasps, and the sweat ran down the body like rain. The moments grew longer and quieter. The whole world seemed to stop moving; and the birds, veering along the cliffs, moved not a feather of their wings.

After that it came. The sky, from zenith to water-line, was cut with a lightning sword, that hissed through the water-logged gray like molten gold. Then followed the cry of pain from the wound,—such a roar as might have come from the throats of all the hell-hounds at once. There was a quick second crash, while at the same instant a fire-ball dropped from heaven into the ocean, curdling the waters where it fell. Then, fury on fury, came the storm,—wind and rain and fiercer flashes, the line of the shower on the sea chased eastward by a toppling mass of rushing foam. With a scream the flock of gulls dashed out into the mist to meet it, and were seen no more; for now the world was black, and everything out of shelter was in a whirling chaos of spray and rain.

Inside the Castle holy candles had been lighted in every room, and beside them were placed manchets of blessed bread, considered to be of great efficacy in warding off lightning-strokes. The two monks, sincerely grateful for their shelter from this outburst, knelt together in the chapel, and called down upon themselves the frightened blessings of the company by praying incessantly, though their voices were inaudible in the tumult of the storm. The wind shrieked around the Castle towers. Flashes of white light, instantly followed by long rolls of thunder, succeeded each other with startling rapidity. And, as a fierce, indeterminate undertone to all other sounds, came the roaring of the sea, which an incoming tide was bringing every minute higher and closer around the base of the cliff below.

An hour went by, and yet another, and instead of diminishing in fury, the wind seemed only to increase. None in the Castle, not madame herself, could remember a summer storm of such duration. Every momentary lull brought after it a still more violent attack, and the longer it lasted, the greater grew the nervousness of the Castle inmates; for to them this meant the anger of God for the sins of His children. The evening meal was eaten amid repeated prayers for mercy and protection; and shortly thereafter, the little company dispersed and crept away to bed,—not because of any hope of sleep, but because there would be a certain comfort in crouching down in a warm shelter and drawing the blankets close overhead. The demoiselles, for the most part, and possibly the squires too, huddled two or three in a room. The monks were lodged together in the servants’ quarters; and of all that castleful, only the women for whom it was kept were unafraid to be alone. Eleanore, Lenore, and Alixe sought each her bed; but of them madame only closed her eyes in sleep.

Lenore found herself terribly restless; and the foreboding in her mind seemed not all the effect of the storm. Her thoughts moved through terrifying shadows. It seemed to her that some great, unknown evil hung over her; but her apprehension was as elusive as it was unreasonable. For some hours she forced herself to keep in bed, tossing and twisting about, but letting no sound escape her. It seemed at last as if the fury of the wind had diminished, though the lightning-flashes continued incessantly, and the whole sky was still alive with muttering thunder. A little after midnight, urged by a restlessness that she was powerless to control, Lenore rose, threw a loose bliault around her, took down the iron lantern that hung, dimly burning, on a hook in a corner of the room, and, lighting her way with this, went out into the silent upper hall of the Castle.

Gray and ghostly enough everything looked, in the dim, flickering lantern-light. There was in the air a smell of pitchy smoke from burnt-out torches, and it seemed to Lenore as if spirits were passing through this mist. Yet she felt no fear of anything in the spirit world. Her heart was full of something else,—a vague, indefinable, more terrible dread, an oppression that she could not reason away. Clad in her voluminous purple mantle, with her hair unbound and flowing over her shoulders, where it sparkled faintly in the lantern-light, she went down the stairs, across the shadowy, pillared spaces of the great lower hall, and so into the long room where Gerault had sat on the day when the herald had come to call him to Rennes. She had a vision of him sitting there at the table, bent upon his manuscript philosophy, never looking up, as again and again she passed the door. It was a ghostly hour for her to be abroad and occupied in such a way; yet she had no thought of present danger. A useless sob choked her as she turned away from this place of sorrowful memories and went to the chapel. Here half a dozen candles on the altar were still burning to the god of the storm; and Lenore, finding comfort in the sight of the cross, knelt before it and offered up a prayer for peace of mind. Then, rising, she moved back again into the hall; and, dreading to return to her lonely room, where the roar of waves and the soughing of the wind round the towers made a din too great for sleep, she sat down on a bench that stood beside a pillar directly opposite the great, locked door. Sitting here, her lantern at her feet, elbow on knee, chin on hand, she fell into a strange reverie. The bitterest of all memories came back to her without bitterness; and she tried to picture to herself that woman of Gerault’s secret heart. What had she been? How had she died? Or was she dead? In what relation had she really stood to Gerault? Was she that cousin of Laval—or some other? These thoughts, which, always before, Lenore had refused to work into definite shape, came to her now and were not repelled. Her musing was deepest when, suddenly, she was startled by the sound of light footsteps in the hall above. Some one came to the staircase; some one came gliding sinuously down. Lenore half rose, and looked up, cold with fear. Then she saw that it was Alixe, and, strangely enough, her fear did not lessen; for never had she seen Alixe like this.

Lenore looked at her long before she was noticed; and the strangeness of the peasant-born’s appearance did not lessen on close examination. She was dressed in garments of pale green. And in these, and in her floating hair, her greenish eyes, her arms, her neck, Lenore fancied that she saw twists and coils and lissome curves and the green and golden fire of innumerable snakes. In the shadowy light everything was indistinct; but there seemed to be a phosphorescent glow about Alixe’s garments that illumined her, till she stood out, the brightest thing in the surrounding darkness. Striving bravely to ward off her sense of creeping fear, Lenore raised her lantern high, and looked at the other, who had now reached the foot of the stairs. Yes—no—_was_ this Alixe? Lenore took two or three frightened steps backward, and instantly Alixe turned toward her.

“Lenore! Thou!” she cried.

“Alixe!” Lenore stared, wondering at herself. Surely she had suffered a hallucination. Alixe was as ever, save that her eyes were a little wider, her skin a little paler, than usual.

“What dost thou here, at this hour, alone, Lenore? Did aught frighten thee?”

“I could not sleep, and so, long since, I rose, to wander about till the noise of the storm should fall. I have sat here for but a moment—thinking. But thou, Alixe,—whither goest thou?”

“I? I also could not sleep. The storm is in my blood. I turned and tossed and strove to lose my thoughts. But they burn forever. Alas! I am seared by them. My eyes refuse to close.”

“What are those thoughts of thine, Alixe? Perchance they were of the same woof as mine.”

“Nay, nay, Lenore! Thou hast no ancient memories of this place.”

“That may be; yet my thoughts were of this place, and of a woman. Tell me, Alixe, hast thou known in thy life one of the same name as mine own: a maid whom—whom my lord knew well, and who hath gone far away?”

“Lenore! Mon Dieu! Who told thee of her?”

“It matters not. I know. Prithee, Alixe, talk to me of her, an thou wouldst still the torture of my soul!”

“What shall I tell thee, madame?” Alixe stared at the young woman with slow, questioning surprise. “Knowest thou of her life here among us?—or wouldst hear of her death?”

“Of all—of her life and death—tell me all!” Lenore drew her mantle close around her, for she was shivering with something that was not cold. She kept her head slightly bent, so that Alixe could not see the working of her face, as the two of them went together to the settle by the pillar.

Lenore sat very still, listening absently to the muffled sound of wind and rain and beating waves, while her mind drank in the narrative that Alixe poured into her ears; and so did the one thing interweave itself with the other in her consciousness, that, in after time, the spirit of the lost Lenore walked forever in her mind amid the terrible grandeur of a mighty storm, lightning crowning her head, her hair and garments dripping with rain and blown about by the increasing wind. An eerie thing it was for these two young and tender women, lightly clad, to sit at this midnight hour in the gray fastnesses of the Twilight Castle, and, while the whirlwind howled without, to turn over in their thoughts the story of a young life so tragically cut off in the midst of its happiness and beauty. Alixe’s changeable eyes shone in the semi-darkness with a phosphorescent gleam, and her voice rose and fell and trembled with emotion as she poured into Lenore’s burning heart the tale of Gerault’s sorrow.

“Five years agone, when I was but a maid of twelve, Seigneur Gerault was of the age of twenty-three. At that time this Castle, I mind me, was a merry place enow. Madame Eleanore had a great train of squires and demoiselles in those days, and thy lord kept a young following of his own—though he held Courtoise ever the favorite. At that time Gerault rode not to tournaments in Rennes, but bided at home with madame, his mother, and Laure, and the young demoiselle Lenore de Laval, niece to madame, a maid as young as thou art now. This maiden had come to Crépuscule when she was but a little girl, her own mother being dead, and madame loving her as a daughter. Gerault’s love for her was not that of a brother; yet because of their blood-relationship, there was little talk of their wedding. For all that, they two were ever together in company, and alone as much as madame permitted. They hawked, they hunted, and, above all, they sailed out on the sea. The Seigneur had a sailing-boat, and Madame Eleanore never knew, methinks, how many hours they spent on the waters of the bay. Child as I was, I envied them their happiness; and, though I went with them but seldom, I knew always how long they were together each day; and methinks I understood how precious each moment seemed.

“On this day I am to tell thee of—oh, Mother of God, that it would leave my memory!—I sat alone by the little gate in the wall behind the falconry, weeping because Laure had deserted our game and run to her mother in the Castle. So, while I sat there, wailing like the little fool I was, came the Seigneur and the demoiselle Lenore out by the gate on their way over the moat and to the beach by the steps that still lead thither down the cliff. The demoiselle paused in her going to comfort me, and presently, more, methinks, to tease the Seigneur than for mine own sake, insisted that I go sailing with them in their boat. I can remember how I screamed out with delight at the thought; for I loved to sail better than I loved to eat; and though Gerault somewhat protested, Lenore had her way, and presently we had come down the cliff and were on the beach by the inlet where the boat was kept.

“’Twas the early afternoon of an April day: warm, the sun covered over with a gray mist that was like smoke, and but little wind for our pleasure. Howbeit, as we put off into the full tide, a breath caught our sail and we started out toward an island near the coast, round the north point of the bay, which from here thou canst not see. I lay down in the bottom of the boat, near to the mast, and listened to the gurgling sound of the water as it passed underneath the planks, and later grew drowsy with the rocking. I ween I slept; for I remember naught of that sail till we were suddenly in the midst of a fog so thick that where I lay I could scarce see the figure of my lord sitting in the stern. There was no wind at all, for the sail flapped against the mast; and I was a little frightened with the silence of everything; so I rose and went to the demoiselle Lenore, who laid her hand on my shoulder, and patted me. She and Sieur Gerault were not talking together, for I think both were a little nervous of the fog. All at once, in the midst of the calm, a streak of wind caught us, and the little boat heeled over under it. Gerault caught at the tiller, swearing an oath that was born more from uneasiness than from anger. Reading his mind, Lenore moved a little out of his way, and began to sing. Ah, that voice and its sweetness! I mind it very well—and also her chansonette. Since that day I have not heard it sung, yet the words are fresh in my mind. Dost know it, madame? It beginneth,—

“‘Assez i a reson porqoi
L’eu doit fame chière tenir—’

“Ah, I remember it all so terribly! While Lenore sang, there came yet another gust of wind, and in it one of the ropes of the sail went loose, and the Seigneur must go to fix it. I sat between him and his lady, and as he jumped up, he put the tiller against my shoulder, and bade me not move till he came back. Lenore sat no more than four feet from me, on that side of the boat that was low in the wind. While she sang she had been playing with a ring that she had drawn from her finger. Just as monsieur sprang forward to the rope, Lenore dropped this ring, which methinks rolled into the water. I know that she gave a cry and threw herself far over the side and stretched out her hand for something. As she leaned, I followed her movement, and the tiller slipped its place. Ah, madame—madame—I remember not all the horror of the next moment! The boat went far over before a wave. Lenore lost her hold, and was in the water without a sound. The Seigneur, in a rage at me for letting the rudder slip, leaped back, and in an instant righted the boat, I screaming and crying, the while, in my woe. I know not how it was, but it seemed that, till we were started on our way again, Gerault never knew that—that his lady was gone.

“Then what a scene! We turned the boat into the wind, the Seigneur saying not one word, but sitting stiff and still and white as death in the stern. The path of the wind had made a long rift in the fog, and through this we sailed, I calling till my voice was gone, the Seigneur leaning over, straining his eyes into that fathomless mist that walled us in on both sides. After that he drew off his doublet and boots, and would have leaped into the waves, but that I—_I_, madame—held him from it. I caught him round the arms till we were both forced to the tiller again, and I cried and commanded and shrieked at him till I made him see that his madness would bring no help. I could not guide the boat alone in the storm, nor could he have saved Lenore from the power of the water.

“For hours and hours we sailed the bay. The wind drove the fog before it until the air was clear, and I think that the sight of that waste of tumbling seas was more cruel than the veiling mist from which we ever looked for Lenore to come back to us. Ah, I cannot picture that time to thee—or to myself. At last, madame, we went back to the Castle. We left her there, the glory of our Seigneur’s life, alone with the pitiless sea. It was I that had done it; that I knew in my heart. That I have always known, and shall never forget. Yet Gerault never spoke a word of blame to me. Mayhap he never knew how it came about. For many months thereafter he was as a man crazed; and since that time he hath not been the same. All that long summer he stayed alone in his room, shut away from us all, seeing only Courtoise, who served him, and his mother, who gave him what comfort she could. Twice, too, he asked for me, and treated me with such kindness that it went near to breaking my heart. Ah, then it was that the Castle began to bear out its name! It seems as if none had ever really lived here since that time.

“But Lenore, thou wouldst say. We never saw her again; though ’tis said that many weeks afterwards a woman’s body was cast up on the shore near St. Nazaire, and was burned there by the fisher-folk, as is their custom with those dead at sea. And they say that now, by night, her voice is heard to cry out along the shore near the inlet where Gerault’s boat once lay.

“Many years are passed since these things happened; yet they have not faded from my memory, nor have they from that of my lord. Up to the time of thy coming, madame, he mourned for her always; nor did he abstain from asking forgiveness of Heaven for her end.”

“Ah, Alixe, he hath not yet ceased to mourn for her. Alas! I cannot fill her place for him. He is uncomforted. How sad, how terrible her end, within the very sight of him she loved! Tell me, Alixe, was she very fair?”

“Not, methinks, so fair as thou, madame. Yet she was beautiful to look on, with her dark hair and her pale, clear skin, and her mouth redder than a rose in June. Her eyes were dark—like shadowy stars. And her ways were gentle—gay—tender—anything to fit her mood. Ah! I am wounding thee!”

Poor Lenore’s head was bent a little farther down, and by her shoulders her companion knew that she wept. Alixe would have given much to bring some comfort for the pain she had unintentionally roused. But in the presence of the unhappy wife, she sat uneasy and abashed, powerless to bring solace to that tortured heart.

While the two sat there, in this silence, the storm, which had lulled a little, broke out afresh with such a flash and roar as caused even Alixe to cower back where she was. There was a fierce tumult of new rain and howling wind, and in the midst of it a sudden great clamoring at the Castle door, and the faint sound of a horse neighing outside. Alixe sprang up, and, thinking only of giving shelter to some storm-driven stranger, unbarred the door. As it flew open before the storm, a man was hurled into the room, in a furious gush of water; and when the lantern-light fell upon his haggard face, Lenore gave a cry that was half a sob, and rushed upon him, clasping his arms,—

“Courtoise! Courtoise! How fares my lord?”

Courtoise gazed down upon her, and did not speak. In his face was such a look of suffering as none had ever seen before upon it.

“Courtoise!” she cried again, this time with a new note in her voice. “Courtoise!—my lord!—speak to me! speak—how fares my lord?”

But still, though she clung to him, Courtoise made no reply.

_CHAPTER TEN_
FROM RENNES

Lenore’s two hands went up in an agony of entreaty. Courtoise maintained his silence. There was in the great hall a stillness that the rushing of the storm could not affect. Alixe moved back to the door, and barred it once more against the attacks of the wind. At the same time another figure appeared on the stairs. Madame Eleanore, fully dressed, her hair bound round with a metal filet, came rapidly down and joined the little group. Lenore was as one groping through a mist. She knew, vaguely, when madame came; but it meant nothing to her. Now she repeated, in the pleading tone of a child that begs for some sweet withheld from it by its elder,—

“Thou bringest a packet from my lord, Courtoise? Sweet Courtoise, deliver it to my hand. My lord sendeth me a letter, is it not so?”

A low cry, inarticulate, heart-broken, came from the lips of the esquire; and therewith he fell upon his knees before the young Lenore and held up his two hands as if to ward off from her the blow that he should deal. “Madame!” he said; and, for some reason, Lenore cowered before him.

Then Eleanore came up to them, her face milk-white, her eyes burning; and, laying her hand upon the young man’s shoulder, she said softly: “Speak, Courtoise! Tell us what is come to thy lord. In pity for us, delay no more.”

Courtoise looked up to her, and saw how deeply haggard her face seemed. Then the world grew great and black; and out of the surrounding darkness came his voice, “The Seigneur is dead. Lord Gerault is killed of a spear-thrust that he got in the lists at Rennes. They bear him homeward now.”

A deep groan, born of this, her final world-wound, came from Eleanore’s gray lips. Alixe gave a long scream, and then fell forward upon her knees and began to mutter senseless words of prayer. Courtoise huddled himself up on the floor, and let fatigue and grief strive for the mastery over him. Only Lenore uttered no sound. She, the youngest of them there, and the most bereaved, stood perfectly still. One of her hands was pressed hard against her forehead; and she looked as if she were trying to recall some forgotten thing. Presently she whispered to herself a few indistinguishable words, and a faint smile hovered round her lips. Finally, seeing the piteous plight of Courtoise, she laid one hand upon his lowered head and said gently,—

“Courtoise, thou art weary, and wet, and spent with riding. Rise, dear squire, and seek thy bed, and rest. ’Tis very late—and thou’rt so weary. Go to thy rest.”

Eleanore looked at her, the frail girl, in amazement. Then she came round and took Lenore’s hand, and said: “Thou sayest well; ’tis very late, Lenore, and thou art also lightly clad. Come thou to thy bed, and let Alixe to hers. Come, my girl.”

Lenore made no resistance, and went with madame toward the stairs; Alixe stared after them as if they had both been mad, for she had never known a blow that stuns the brain. Lenore suffered herself to be led quietly up the stairs, and, reaching her own room, which was dark save for the light that came through from madame’s open door, she dropped off her wide bliault, and lay down, shivering slightly, in the cold bed. She was numb and drowsy. Madame, bending over her, watched and saw the eyelids slowly close over her great blue eyes, till they were fast shut; and the young Lenore slept—slept as sweetly as a babe.

Of the night, however, that madame spent, who dares to speak in unexpressive words? What the slow-passing, dark-robed hours brought her, who shall say? Her last loss broke her spirit; and she felt that underneath the heavy, all-powerful hand of the Creator-Destroyer, none might stand upright and hope to live. Gerault had suffered, as now he gave, great sorrow. Eleanore had never felt herself close to his heart, as she had once been close to the heart of that daughter whom she had sacrificed to an unwilling God. But now, in the knowledge of his death, the memory of Gerault’s coldness and of his elected solitude went from her, and she recalled only the justice, the strength, the self-reliance of him. Gradually her memory drew her back through his manhood, through his youth and his boyhood, to the time of his infancy, when the little, helpless, dark-eyed babe had come to bless the loneliness of her own young life. And with this memory, at last, came tears,—those divine tears that can wash the direst grief free of its bitterness.

As the dawn showed in the east, and rose triumphant over the dying storm, madame crept to her bed, and laid her weary body on the kindly resting-place, and slept.

At half-past six the sun lifted above the eastern hills, and looked forth from a clear, green sky, over a land freshly washed, glittering with dew, and new-colored with brighter green and gold and red for the glorification of the September day. The sea, bringing great breakers in from the pathless west, was spread with a carpet of high-rolling gold, designed to cover all the new-stolen treasures gathered by night and stored within its treacherous, malignant depths. But the world poured fragrant incense to the sun, and the sun showered gold on the sea, and in this sacrificial worship Nature expiated her dire passion of the night.

It was fair daylight when Lenore opened her eyes and sat up in her bed to greet the morning. She was glad indeed to escape from the fetters of sleep, for her dreams had been feverish things. In them she had wandered abroad over the gray battlements, and through the grim chambers of dimly lighted Crépuscule, and had seen and heard terrible things. Lenore smiled to herself at the thought that all were past. And then, creeping over her, came the black shadow of reality, of memory. There was the storm—her sleeplessness—Alixe—the story of the lost Lenore—were these dreams? And then—finally—God!—the coming of Courtoise—and—

With a sharp cry Lenore sprang from the bed, flung her purple mantle upon her, and ran wildly through the adjoining room into that of madame. Eleanore, roused from her light sleep by that cry, had risen and met her daughter near the door. Lenore needed but one glance into madame’s colorless face. Then she knew that she had not dreamed in the past night. Her horrible visions were true.

Physical refreshment brought her a terrible power: the power of suffering. There could not now be any numb acceptance of facts. Eleanore herself was shocked at the change that a few seconds wrought in the young face. Yet still Lenore shed no tears, made no exhibition of her grief. Quietly, with the stillness of death about her movements, she returned to her room and began to dress herself. Before she had finished her toilet, Alixe crept in, white-faced and red-eyed, to ask if there were any service she might do. Lenore tremulously bade her wait till her hair was bound; and then she said: “Let Courtoise be brought in to me, here.”

“Wilt thou not first eat—but a morsel of bread—nay, a sup of wine?” pleaded Alixe.

Lenore looked at her. “How should I eat or drink? Let Courtoise be brought to me.”

Obediently Alixe went and found Courtoise loitering about the foot of the stairs in the hall below. He ascended eagerly when Alixe gave him her message, and entered alone into the room where sat Lenore.

Through two long hours Alixe and the demoiselles and young esquires, a stricken, silent company, huddled together at the table in the long room, sat and waited the coming of Courtoise. There was nothing to be done in the Castle save to wait; and it seemed to them all that they would rather work like slaves than sit thus, inert and silent, and with naught to do but think of what had come upon Le Crépuscule. They knew that the body of Gerault was on its way home. A henchman had long since started off for St. Nazaire to acquaint the Bishop with the news and bring him back to the Castle. Also, Anselm and the captain of the keep had lifted the great stone in the floor of the chapel, that led into the vault below. This was all there was to be done now, until the last home-coming of their lord.

At ten o’clock Courtoise appeared on the threshold of the long room, and his face bore a light as of transfiguration. As he went in and halted near the doorway, the little company rose reverently, and waited for him to speak. He turned to Alixe, but it was a moment or two before he could get his voice and control it to speak.

“Alixe—Alixe—Madame Lenore hath asked for you—asks that you come to her.”

Alixe rose at once, and the two went out together into the hall. There, however, Courtoise halted, saying, in a low, almost reverent tone: “She is in her chamber. I am to remain here below.”

Alixe turned her white face and her bright green eyes upon him questioningly. “How doth she bear herself? Doth she yet weep?” she asked in a half-whisper.

“She doth not weep. Ah, God! the Seigneur married an angel out of heaven, Alixe, and never knew it; and now can never know!”

“He was our lord, Courtoise. Reproach not the dead.”

Courtoise bent his head without speaking, and Alixe went on, up to Lenore’s chamber, the door of which stood half open. Alixe went softly in, and found Lenore sitting alone by the window, where madame had just left her. Silently the widowed girl put out both hands to Alixe, and, as Alixe went over to her, the tears began to run from her eyes. It was this sight of tears that first broke through Lenore’s wonderful self-control. Springing to her feet, with a choking, hysterical cry she flung both arms around Alixe’s neck, and wailed out, in that breathless monotone that children sometimes use: “Alixe! Alixe! Why is it that I cannot die? O Alixe! Alixe! Pray God to let me die!”

* * * * *

At four o’clock in the afternoon Monseigneur de St. Nazaire arrived at the Castle. The body of the fallen knight had not yet come. Watchers had been placed in every tower to catch the first sight of the funeral train; but all day long they had strained their eyes in vain. At last, when the sun was near the horizon, and the golden shadows were long over the land, and the sky was haloed with a saintly glow, up, out of the cool depths of the forest, on the winding, barren road that rose toward the Castle on the cliff, came a wearily moving company of men and horses. There were six riders, who, with lances reversed, rode three on a side of a broad, heavy cart, of which the burden was covered with a great, black cloth, embroidered in one corner with the ducal arms of Brittany.

The drawbridge was already lowered. In the courtyard an orderly company of henchmen and servants stood waiting to see the funeral car drive in. The Castle doors were open, and in their space stood the Bishop, with a priest at his right hand and, on his left, Courtoise, black-clothed, and white and calm. In front of the doorway the cart halted, and immediately the six gentlemen of Rennes, who had drawn Gerault from the fatal lists and had of their own desire brought him home, dismounted, and, after reverently saluting the Bishop, went to the cart and lifted out the stretcher. This, its burden still covered with the black cloth, they carried into the Castle and deposited in the chapel on the high, black bier made ready for it.

Madame Eleanore, Alixe, and the demoiselles, but not Lenore, were in the chapel waiting. When the burden of the litter had been placed, and the black cloth drawn close over the dead body, Eleanore, who till this time had been upon her knees before the altar, came forward to greet the six knightly gentlemen, and all of them, as they returned her sad salute, were struck with her impenetrable dignity. Her salutation at once thanked them, greeted them, and dismissed them from the chapel; and indeed they had no thought of staying to watch this first meeting of the living with the dead; but, returning obeisance to the mother of their comrade, they left the holy room and found Courtoise outside, waiting to conduct them to the refreshment that had been prepared.

So was Eleanore left alone before her dead. Behind her, near the altar, knelt the maidens, weeping while they prayed. The tall candles around the bier were yet unlighted; but through one of the high windows came a last ray of sunlight, to bar the mourning-cloth with royal gold.

For a moment, clasping both hands before her, in her silent strain, Eleanore stood still before the bier. Then, moving forward, she lifted the edge of the covering, and drew it away from the head and shoulders of her son.

There was he,—Gerault. There was he, scarcely whiter or more still than she had seen him many times in life; yet he was dead: transparent and pinched and ineffably still, and dead! The head was bare of any cap or helmet, and the black locks and beard were smoothly combed. The broad, fair brow was calm and unwrinkled. The mouth, scarce concealed by the mustache, was curved into an expression of great peace.

Madame took the cover again, and drew it slowly down till the whole form lay before her. His armor had been removed, and he was clothed in silken vestments that hid all trace of his wound. The hands were folded fair across his breast; his feet were cased in long velvet shoes, fur-bordered. From the peacefulness of his attitude it was difficult to imagine the scene by which he had met his end: the great flashing and clashing of arms, the blare of trumpets, the shouting applause of thousands of fair onlookers, gayly clothed ladies, who, after their shouting, saw him fall.

Long Eleanore stood there, looking upon him as he lay, untroubled now by any human thing. And as she looked, many world-thoughts rose up within her as to his life, his griefs, and the manner of his going. She had had him always: had borne, and reared, and watched, and loved him; and he had loved her, she knew, though he had seldom shown it, and had lived much within himself. She yearned—ah, _how_ she yearned!—to take him now into her arms again, and croon over him, and soothe him, as a mother soothes her children. Alas, that he did not need it of her! Her breast heaved twice or thrice, with deep, suppressed sobs. Then she fell upon her knees, and leaned her forehead over upon an edge of his robe while she prayed. And as she knelt there, twilight gathered over the sunset glow, and the chapel grew dim and gray with coming darkness.

After a long while madame rose and turned to Alixe, who stood near, looking at her and weeping. And madame said gently: “Alixe, let her be summoned—little Lenore—his wife. She should be here.”

Alixe bowed silently, and went away out of the room. Eleanore remained in her place, and the demoiselles still knelt under the crucifix. Then came footboys, with tapers, to light the candles. Presently the bier was haloed with yellow flames, and the marble altar blazed with lights. The hour for the mass was near, and the people of the Castle, and a few country folk, clothed in their best, began to come softly into the chapel, by twos and threes. All, after bowing to the cross and pausing for a few seconds to look upon Gerault, passed over to the far side of the room, and knelt there, absorbed in prayer. The little room was more than half filled, when Courtoise, pale and wide-eyed, appeared upon the threshold, and, holding up his hand, whispered to the throng,—

“Madame Lenore is here! Peace, and be still! Madame Lenore comes in!”

Immediately Lenore walked into the room, and men held their breath at sight of her. She was dressed as for a bridal, in robes of stiff, white damask, her mantle fastened at her throat with a silver pin, and her silver-woven wedding-veil falling over her from the filet that confined it. White as death itself she was, and staring straight before her, seeing nothing of the throng of onlookers. For a moment her eyes were blinded by the blaze of light. Then she started forward, to the body of her lord.

When she entered, her two hands had been tightly clenched, and she had thought to restrain herself from any outbreak of grief before the people. But the living were forgotten now. Here before her was the face that she had loved so wofully, that she had hungered for so unspeakably. Here was he, the giver of her one brief hour of unutterable happiness; the cause of so many days and nights of tremulous woe. Here he lay, waiting not for her nor for anything, with no power to give her greeting when she came. Yet it was he; it was his face.

“Gerault—Gerault—my lord!” she whispered softly, as if he slept: “Gerault!” She was beside him, and had taken one of the rigid hands in both her warm, living ones. “My lord, my beloved, wilt not turn thy face to me? I have waited long for thy kiss. Prithee, give but a little of thy love; _seem_ but to notice me, and I will be well content. Nay, but thou surely wilt! Surely, surely, beloved, thou wilt not pass me by!”

She had been covering the hand she held with kisses, but now she put it from her, and looked down upon the passive body, her eyes wide and hurt, and her mouth tremulous with his repulse. The spectators watched this pitiable scene with fascinated awe; and it seemed not to occur to one of them to prevent what followed. None there realized that Lenore was unbalanced: that to her, Gerault was still alive. She bent over, and put her lips to his. Then, burned and tortured by the unresponsiveness of the clay, she laid herself down upon the bier and put her head in the hollow of Gerault’s neck, where it had been wont to rest.

Now, at last, two of that watching company started forward to prevent a continuance of the scene. Courtoise and the Bishop went to her with one impulse; took her—monseigneur by the hands, Courtoise about the body; loosened her clasp upon the form of her dead husband, and drew her gently away from the bier. She, spent and shaken with her grief, made no resistance, but lay quietly back in their arms, trembling and weak. Thereupon both men looked helplessly toward Madame Eleanore, to know what should be done. She, strained almost to the point of breaking, came and stood over the form of Lenore and said to Courtoise,—

_“Gerault—Gerault—my
lord!” she whispered.—Page 275_
]

“She cannot remain here. ’Tis too terrible for her. Carry her up to her room, whither Alixe shall follow her. But I must remain here till the mass is said.”

Both of the men would gladly have acted upon this suggestion; but madame had not finished speaking when Lenore began to struggle in their arms, crying piteously the while:

“Nay! Let me stay! In the name of mercy, let me not be sent from him. I will not seek again to disturb his rest. I will be very quiet—very still. I will not even weep. I will but kneel here upon the stones, and will not speak through all the mass, so that you take me not out of his sight. Methinks he might care to have me here; it might be his wish that I should remain unto the end. Have pity, gentle Courtoise! Pity, monseigneur!”

At once they granted her request, and released her; for indeed her plea was more than any of the three could well endure. The Bishop was beyond speech, and the tears were streaming from Courtoise’s eyes as he left her side. Lenore kept her word. She knelt down upon the stones, two or three feet from the bier; and, with head bent low and hands clasped upon her breast, strove to force her thoughts to God and high heaven. St. Nazaire at once began the mass for the dead, and never had any man more reverence done him or more tears shed for him than the stern and silent Lord of Crépuscule, who, it seemed, had formed a light of life for Lenore the golden-haired. After the beginning of the service, she was left unnoticed where she had placed herself; and, as the minutes passed, her strained figure settled nearer and nearer to the floor; the candle-light played more joyously with her glorious hair; and finally, as the mass neared its end, she sank quietly down upon the stones, unconscious and released from tears at last.