Let us precede Martin by only one minute.
Ah! What is that shadow on the stairs? The likeness of one that pours the contents of a small phial into a goblet. A light is behind him and casts the shadow—The thing vanishes as Martin turns the corner. The sleeping potion was there, as left by the majordomo for his mistress, ere he retired early to rest, to be up with the lark.
Martin himself gave it to his aunt. She drank it slowly, observed that it had an unusual taste, but not an unpleasant one.
“Martin,” she said, “hast told my sister, thy mother, all that I have said?”
“I have repeated your kind words.”
“And that her home is open for her, should she ever wish to return hither? which may God grant.”
“I have.”
“And I will take care that a clause in her favour is put into my will, which within the week will be witnessed by Earl Warrenne.”
Alas! man proposes but God disposes. On the following morning the Lady Sybil did not arise at the usual time, nor did she, as was her wont, appear at the morning mass in her chapel. At length, alarmed by the continued silence, her handmaids ventured to the bedside to arouse her. She lay as in a peaceful sleep, but stirred not as they approached. They became alarmed, touched her forehead; it was icy cold. Then their loud cries brought the household upstairs, Martin, Drogo, and all; and the truth forced itself upon them. She slept that sleep:
Which men call death.