She kissed the wild bramble lifting its petals in the sun.
"I shall return to thee soon."
And so, springing to her feet, she ran laughing down the hill, and as she ran the spirit of the hills was with her, blowing in her eyes and lifting her soft hair.
"I shall return to thee soon," she said again, and so entered her father's house and prepared herself for her betrothed.
What of her dream was there now? She was indeed the Earl's bride, but, alack! she was divorced from his heart and was naught to his days.
Never did she sit by his knee when he drew his chair by the fire, weary from the chase, nor lean beside him while he slept, to wonder at her happiness. Down the great halls she went, looking through the narrow windows on the outside world, as a brown moth flutters at the pane, weary of an imprisonment that had in its hold the breath of death.
Weary and pale grew she, and more morose and stern the Black Earl, and of their tragedy there seemed no end. But when a year had nigh passed, one rosy morning a servant-lass met Black Roderick as he came from his chamber, her eyes heavy with tears.
And of what she said I shall sing, lest thou grow weary of my prose:
"Alas!" she said, "Earl Roderick,
'Tis well that you should know
That each gray eve, lone wandering,
My mistress dear doth go.
"She comes with sorrow in her eyes
Home in the dawning light;
My lord, she is so weak and young
To travel in the night."