At that moment, Anna, supported by Ormiston and Christina her attendant, appeared at the side of the vessel, about to cross a broad plank that extended to the rough wooden pier, overlooked by the great donjon tower of Noltland. She was very pale; but the torchlight shed a tinge of red on her cheek, and caused her heavy locks to glitter as the night wind waved them to and fro.
The plank shook, and a half-stifled cry of fear escaped from Anna. Bothwell advanced to her assistance, but at the instant a young man sprang from the crowd of islesmen behind Sir Gilbert Balfour, dropped into the water, seized the plank with both hands to steady it, while presenting his shoulder for the lady to lean on.
She touched it lightly with her hand, and murmured her thanks as she passed.
A low sigh fell upon her ear; and, with that quick apprehension of sorrow and interest which is so characteristic of women, Anna turned to her supporter, but his face was bent down and concealed, and she felt agitated—she knew not why.
The young man trembled so much that he almost sank when she touched him. He looked up once; there was a rustling of satin—a dreamy sense of perfume and starched lace, and the vision passed away. He was Konrad!
Ah! had Anna seen the deep and earnest, the sorrowful and affectionate expression that lit his soft and upturned eyes, her heart would assuredly have smote her; but the splendid Earl of Bothwell seized her hand, and led her towards Sir Gilbert Balfour, by whom she was hurried away.
Lighted by torches that streamed and sputtered in the night wind, and flared on the rugged rocks that reared from the frothy ocean, the group ascended the narrow and winding pathway that led to the castle. Konrad gazed wistfully after them, with his hands pressed upon his forehead, and with the air of one who struggles to preserve his senses.
When drifting about at the sport of the waves of the Christiana fiord, and almost insensible from cold and misery, he had been picked up by a small galliot bound for Kirkwall, and the crew had landed him in Westeray a week before the arrival of Bothwell.
He had been protected by Balfour, who, being kind-hearted and hospitable, felt interested in the young man on witnessing the dejection and utter prostration of spirit under which he laboured.
The despair of a heart that has loved truly, and been deceived, is sometimes so deep that no one can imagine its intensity. So it was with Konrad.