And yet at the other side of the room a door had opened, softly and noiselessly, and a man had entered.
He shut the door behind him and walked up to Lady Jane, who still lay on the floor. He stood behind her while she uttered her despairing lamentation. He heard every word of her quivering lips; her whole heart painfully convulsed and torn with grief lay unveiled before him; and she knew it not.
Now he bent over her; and with his hand he lightly touched her shoulder. At this touch she gave a convulsive start, as if hit by the stroke of a sword, and her sobbing was immediately silenced.
An awful pause ensued. The woman lay on the floor motionless, breathless, and near her, tall and cold as a figure of bronze, stood the man.
“Lady Jane Douglas,” said he then, sternly and solemnly, “stand up. It becomes not your father’s daughter to be upon her knees, when it is not God to whom she kneels. But you are not kneeling to God, but to an idol, which you yourself have made, and to which you hate erected a temple in your heart. This idol is called ‘Your own personal misfortune.’ But it is written, ‘Thou shalt have no other Gods but me.’ Therefore I say to you once more, Lady Jane Douglas, rise from your knees, for it is not your God to whom you kneel.”
And as though these words exercised a magnetic power over her, she raised herself up slowly from the floor, and now stood there before her father, stern and cold as a statue of marble.
“Cast from you the sorrows of this world, which burden you, and hinder you in the sacred work which God has imposed on you!” continued Earl Douglas in his metallic, solemn voice. “It is written, ‘Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,’ saith our God. But you, Jane, you are to throw down your trouble at the foot of the throne; and your burden will become a crown that will glorify your head.”
He laid his hand on her head, but she wildly shook it off.
“No,” cried she, with heavy, faltering tongue, as if confused in a dream. “Away with this crown! I wish no crown upon which devils have laid a spell. I wish no royal robe that has been dyed crimson with the blood of my beloved.”
“She is still in the delirium of her anguish,” muttered the earl, as he contemplated the pale, trembling woman who had now sunk again to her knees, and was staring straight before her with eyes bewildered and stretched wide open. But the looks of the earl remained cold and unmoved, and not the least compassion was aroused in him for his poor daughter, now penetrated with anguish.