Christian Alborg had departed with his prisoners; and, unnoticed and uncared for, Konrad stood in the hall, where he had once been so welcome a guest. A sensation of loneliness and bitterness ran through his mind. There was the chair of the old knight Rosenkrantz, with his sword and long leather gloves hung upon it, just as he had last left them; his walking-cane stood in a corner, and his furred boots were beside it; the place was identified with his presence—full of his memory; and his bluff round figure, in his ample red gaberdine and trunk hose, his kind old face, with its mild blue eyes and fair bushy beard, seemed to flit between the shadowy columns of the ancient hall.
Konrad had no intention of remaining in a place where all was so changed to him; but, ere he turned to leave it for ever, he paused a moment irresolutely. Since last he stood there, all that had passed appeared like a dream, but a sad and bitter one. His heart melted within him at the very thought of his own desolation; a shower of tears would have relieved him, but he had none to shed, for his eyes felt dry and stony.
"Why should I remain here, where not one is left to care for me now?" he said with a smile, as if in scorn of the weakness that made him linger, and, turning away, was about to retire, when a sound arrested him; once more the arras rose and fell, and Anna stood before him. He gazed upon her without the power of utterance.
She was alone.
With a heightened colour in her cheek, and a charming timidity in her eye, she approached, and, touching his arm, said—
"Christina told me thou wert here, Konrad; and wouldst thou go without one greeting—one farewell—to me?"
Her accents sank into his inmost soul; he trembled beneath her touch, and felt all his resolution melting fast away.
"Unkind Konrad!" said she, with one of her sad but most winning smiles, "is this the friendship thou didst vow to me at Westeray?"
"I have learned, Anna, that love can never be succeeded by friendship. It runs to the other extreme—the impulses of the human heart cannot pause midway."
"Thou hast learned to hate me, then?"