“Sleep!” echoed a hollow voice from the inner cell. “Sleep, when there is fever in my brain, and fire in my heart! Dost jest, good Albertine?”
“Nay nay, Adrian, I jest not. I have a sleeping potion which will give thee rest.”
“The rest of the grave, in the arms of the skeleton-god,” muttered Balvardo, with a low chuckle.
“Would that thy potion could minister sleep eternal,” spoke the hollow voice, and a hasty footstep was heard. “And yet I would not die yet—no, no! She still lives. I would not die, save in her arms, and by her side!”
And as the voice sounded strange and hollow through the cell, the tapestry rustled, and Adrian Di Albarone stood before the monk.
Adrian Di Albarone it was, but the manly form was bent with chains, the black velvet attire of the student was soiled and torn; while the faded countenance, the sunken cheek, the lips compressed, the hollow eye-sockets, and the quick and fiery eye, all told a tale of the agony of years endured within the compass of a single hour.
He stood before the monk, and his chains clanked as he stood, while his wild eye drank in each line of Albertine’s visage.
“You spoke of a soothing potion, good Albertine.”
“Seven, eight, nine,” muttered Balvardo.
The monk spoke not a word; he strode to the closet—he seized the flask of wine—he filled the goblet to the brim.