He saw her form no more, but a low muttered laugh came whispering along the galleries of the monastery, and half-formed words broke on his ear.
“Where is now the ravisher, flushed with wine and maddened with lust; where is now the proud Duke, haughtily attired in robes of price, with dishonor on his heart, and the foul purpose on his soul?”
Crouching against the wall, trembling in every limb, his eyes vacant with terror, his whiskered jaw half dropped upon his heart, his hand still nervously grasping the iron lamp, he listens to the low, muttered laugh creeping to his ear from the far distant corridors; he listens and shakes with fear, but says no word.
Along the dark galleries she flees, filling the old arches with echoes of that low muttered laugh; through the midnight passages she winds, stairways she ascends, and her delicate feet descend the dampened steps of stone; alone, in darkness, and in nameless fear, she glides on her flight of terror.
The cool air sweeps over her fevered brow, the dampness of the atmosphere chills her bosom, and by slow degrees the flight of madness, caused by the drugged potion, passed from her soul, and the Ladye Annabel is restored to reason and to thought.
Oh! fearful reason, oh! terrible thought, to which madness were joy, insanity, in its wildest flight, happiness the most intense.
“The bride must be widowed, ere she weds a second time!”
She rushed on, never heeding the darkness; she rushed on, never heeding the cold. She might save him yet; oh! even yet she might save him.
And through the dark passages of that deserted part of the monastery she wound, until her hands, extended on either side, touched the opposite walls, wet with moisture, and crawling with vermin; when the echo of the arches, succeeded by a dead, deafening murmur, told Annabel that she strode along a confined corridor, far under ground, growing narrow and yet narrower at every step.
A moment passed, and her extended hands were met by waving folds of tapestry, that swept across her path, and terminated the narrow corridor. Thrusting her hands eagerly among the hangings, she turned them suddenly aside, and started back with surprise, as a broad belt of light was thrown along the gloomy passage. With hushed breath and a throbbing heart, she gazed beyond the hangings of dark leather, and while her blue eyes dilated with wonder and fear, she beheld a strange and startling scene.