“Nay! Let me stay! In the name of mercy, let me not be sent from him. I will not seek again to disturb his rest. I will be very quiet—very still. I will not even weep. I will but kneel here upon the stones, and will not speak through all the mass, so that you take me not out of his sight. Methinks he might care to have me here; it might be his wish that I should remain unto the end. Have pity, gentle Courtoise! Pity, monseigneur!”
At once they granted her request, and released her; for indeed her plea was more than any of the three could well endure. The Bishop was beyond speech, and the tears were streaming from Courtoise’s eyes as he left her side. Lenore kept her word. She knelt down upon the stones, two or three feet from the bier; and, with head bent low and hands clasped upon her breast, strove to force her thoughts to God and high heaven. St. Nazaire at once began the mass for the dead, and never had any man more reverence done him or more tears shed for him than the stern and silent Lord of Crépuscule, who, it seemed, had formed a light of life for Lenore the golden-haired. After the beginning of the service, she was left unnoticed where she had placed herself; and, as the minutes passed, her strained figure settled nearer and nearer to the floor; the candle-light played more joyously with her glorious hair; and finally, as the mass neared its end, she sank quietly down upon the stones, unconscious and released from tears at last.
A few moments later, Courtoise and Alixe bore her gently up the great stairs, and laid her, in her white bridal robes, upon her lonely bed. It was thus that she left Gerault; thus that her youth and her love met their end, and her long twilight of widowhood began.
Another morning dawned, in tender primrose tints, and saluted the sea through a low-clinging September haze. The Castle rose at the usual hour, and dressed, and descended to the morning meal, scarce able to understand that there was any change in the usual quiet existence. It was impossible, indeed, to realize that, in two little days of sun and storm, the life of the Castle had died, its mainstay had broken, and that henceforth it must exist only in memories. On this day two of the squires made their adieux to madame, and hied them forth to seek a lord by whom to be trained yet more thoroughly for knighthood; and mayhap to get themselves a little more familiar with its third article.[[3]] But Courtoise, all heart-broken as he was, and Roland de St. Bertaux, and Guy le Trouvé, being all of gentle blood, but without other home to seek, came to their lady and kissed her hand, and swore her eternal allegiance and service. And the demoiselles, who had, indeed, no need of a lord in the Castle, renewed their duty to their mistress, and also tried to give her what little comfort they knew, in the shape of certain of Anselm’s Latin texts, and a few less pithy but warmer phrases of their own making. The six knights that had brought Gerault home, rode off again, sadly bearing with them Eleanore’s brave messages of loyalty and thanks to Duke Jean in Rennes. The Bishop of St. Nazaire sent his assistant priest home; but he himself elected to remain for a day or two, knowing that, should Lenore become seriously ill, he would be a stay for Madame Eleanore. Of Eleanore herself there were no fears. She was too strong to cause any one anxiety for her health. Indeed, it was generally thought that she had put Gerault too much away. How that may be is not certain; but there was nothing now in the Castle to speak of him. The chapel was empty; the mouth of the great vault had closed once more, this time to hide under its grim weight the last of the line of Crépuscule.
[3]. “He shall uphold the rights of the weaker, such as orphans, damsels, and widows.”
On the second day after the funeral, Eleanore, knowing by bitter experience how excellent a cure for melancholy is hard work, betook herself and the demoiselles up to the spinning-room as usual. Lenore only, of the company, was missing. She, by madame’s own bidding, still kept her bed,—lying there silent, patient, asking no attendance from any one; listening hour by hour to the soft sound of the sea as it broke upon the cliffs far below her window. Of what was in her heart, what things she saw in her day dreams, neither Alixe nor madame sought to learn. But there was something in her face, thin, wan, transparent as it had grown, that sent a great fear to Eleanore’s heart, and caused her to watch over Lenore with deep anxiety; and it seemed as if the effort of walking would break the last vestige of strength in that frail body.
Through the first day of return to the old routine, madame was fully occupied in making a pretence at cheerfulness and in inducing those around her to hide their sadness. But afterwards, when chatter and smiles began to come naturally back to the young lips, and the gayety of youth to shine from their eyes again, she suddenly relaxed her strain, and let her mind sink into what depths it would. How dim with misery was the September air! Hope had gone out of her life; and the thought of joy was a mockery. Throughout her whole world there was not a single spot of brightness on which to feast her tired eyes. Even imagination had fled, and there remained to her only a vista of unending, monotonous days, the one so like the other that she should soon forget the passage of time. And this future was inevitable. Le Crépuscule was here, and she must keep to it. She had no other refuge save a nunnery; and that merest suggestion was terrible to her. Gerault’s widow, the young Lenore, was left; yet she would be infinitely happier to go back to the home of her youth. There was a cry of despair in Eleanore’s heart at this realization, and she fought with herself for a long time before finally she was wrought to the point of going to Lenore and counselling her return to her father’s roof. Yet Eleanore brought herself to this; for she felt that this last sacrifice was one of duty: that she had no right forever to shut the youth and beauty of the young life into the grim shadows of Le Crépuscule.
On the evening of the third day of her new struggle Eleanore went, with woe in her heart, to the door of Lenore’s room. The apartment was flooded with the light of sunset, so that Lenore, lying in the very midst of it, seemed to be resting in a sea of glowing gold. When Eleanore entered, the young girl turned, with a little smile of pleasure, and said,—
“Thou’rt very kind to come to me here while I lie thus in idlesse. Indeed, I see not how thou shouldst bear with me that I do nothing when all the Castle is at work.”