All had seemed silent in the castle for near half an hour, but she was still upon her knees, with her head bent down, when her father's well-known step sounded in the neighbouring chamber; and the next instant he entered with a light. Touched, perhaps, a little, he might be, at the sight of his daughter's grief and desolation, but still his frown was not relaxed, and no kindlier feelings shone upon his lip.
"What! have they not brought thee a lamp?" he said, as she rose on his entrance. "Take this, and go to bed and sleep, for thou must rise betimes to-morrow. I came to tell thee thy fate--his is sealed. At early dawn, under the guard of a party of men-at-arms thou goest to Würtzburg; there to pass the days of thy widowhood in the convent of the Black Nuns, and to learn, I trust, in penitence and prayer, the duty and obedience of a daughter."
"The days will be few," answered Adelaide, in an absent tone. "Can nothing move you, my father?" she continued. "I ask you not to spare me--I ask you to spare him, to spare yourself; for bitterly, till the last hour of life, will you regret it if you injure him. Nay, hear, my father, for I am as calm as you are--but wait a few hours, give no way to hasty passion, see and hear him who counselled us in what we have done, and judge not till you have heard."
"I have judged," answered the Count, turning away from her; "and others have judged who are moved by no hasty passion. Give me no more words, girl. His doom is fixed, I say. He shall not die till thou art beyond the hills; but yet to-morrow's sun shall not be one hour old before he pays with his head for the crime he has committed. No words, no words;" and, leaving her the lamp he carried, he retired, and closed the door.
It is with difficulty that a kind and gentle heart realizes in imagination acts of severity and harshness of which it is itself incapable. Though Adelaide had feared, and trembled throughout the day, with vague apprehensions of her father carrying his menaces into effect; though she knew him to be stern and hard; though through life fear had mingled with affection, yet she loved him too well to know him thoroughly; for love has always a power of transfusing, as it were, the life-blood of our own character into the object of our affection; and when she was so gentle, she could not believe that he was so cruel. The words he spoke, however, before he left her, the air and manner in which they were uttered; the deep depression of her mind, from long hours of grief and anxiety; the still and gloomy time of night; all tended to give the vivid semblance of reality to the deed which he announced to her. Could it be possible? she asked herself. Could he really imbrue his hands in the blood of him she loved--of one so kind, so good, so brave, so true? Should she never see him more? Oh, no, no; it was too horrible to think of. It was impossible. Her father would never do it.
But as she thus stood on the same spot where he had left her, gazing earnestly on the ground which she did not see, there was a light knock at the door, and she started, but without replying. The knock was repeated, and she said "Come in."
A low, woman's voice, however, answered, "I cannot, lady, the door is locked. Put down your ear to the keyhole."
Mechanically she did as she was told, asking, "What is it?"
"They have condemned him, lady," said the voice. "I heard them say myself, 'Worthy of death,' and then they hurried him away. I cannot stay for fear some one should come," and a retreating step immediately announced that the speaker had departed.
It was true then--too true. He was judged--he was to die--to die for love of her--to die for an act in which she had taken willing part; which she had not only shared, but encouraged. And did her father expect that she would survive him; that she would see the lover of her youth, the husband of a night, thus perish for her sake? that she would live on in the cold world that he had left? Did he expect her to mingle in its gaieties, to take part in its pageants, to taste its enjoyments, to laugh with the merry, and sing with the light of heart?