Long since satiated with pleasure, sick of ambition, and wearied of the world, he now found how deep were the stings of unavailing regret.
The day, we have said, went down, and night spread her spangled mantle on the darkened water and the moonlit sea.
Brightly in its calm beauty the evening star arose from the dark-heaving line of the northern ocean, and Bothwell thought of the time when he had last watched that orb expanding on the night, as it rose above the ruined spire of St. Mary-in-the-Field.
At that moment, a cry—that seemed to be wafted over the surface of the water—made his ears and heart tingle, as it passed away on the skirt of the hollow wind.
Bothwell grew ghastly pale, he covered his ears with his hands, and rushed away to his cabin in despair.
She told me all, And as she spoke her eyes led captive mine— Her voice was low, and thrill’d me to the bone; She ceased and all was silence, whilst I sat Like one who, long entranced by melody, Feels still the music in the soul Though sound has died away. _Sir C. Lindesay’s Alfred._
Christian Alborg had departed with his prisoners; and, unnoticed and uncared for, Konrad stood in the hall, where he had once been so welcome a guest. A sensation of loneliness and bitterness ran through his mind. There was the chair of the old knight Rosenkrantz, with his sword and long leather gloves hung upon it, just as he had last left them; his walking-cane stood in a corner, and his furred boots were beside it; the place was identified with his presence—full of his memory; and his bluff round figure, in his ample red gaberdine and trunk hose, his kind old face, with its mild blue eyes and fair bushy beard, seemed to flit between the shadowy columns of the ancient hall.
Konrad had no intention of remaining in a place where all was so changed to him; but, ere he turned to leave it for ever, he paused a moment irresolutely. Since last he stood there, all that had passed appeared like a dream, but a sad and bitter one. His heart melted within him at the very thought of his own desolation; a shower of tears would have relieved him, but he had none to shed, for his eyes felt dry and stony.
"Why should I remain here, where not one is left to care for me now?" he said with a smile, as if in scorn of the weakness that made him linger, and, turning away, was about to retire, when a sound arrested him; once more the arras rose and fell, and Anna stood before him. He gazed upon her without the power of utterance.