tto found himself in a state chamber, whose gloomy vastness was lighted, or rather darkened by one single taper. Through the high oval windows in the deep recess of the wall peered an errant ray of moonlight, which illumined the quaint monastic paintings on the walls, and crossing the yellow candle-light, imbued them with a strange ghostly glare.
When his host had ministered to his comfort and served him with the frugal fare of the cloister, Otto hinted his desire for sleep, and his trusty Saxons entered on their watch before their sovereign's chamber.
At last, left alone, Otto listened with a heavy heart to the monotonous tread of the sentries. It seemed to him as if he could now take a survey of the events of his life, and pass sentence upon it with the impartiality of the future chronicler. Recollection roused up recollection; and as in a panorama, the scenes of his short, but eventful career passed in review before his inner eye. He thought of what he was, contrasting it painfully with all he might have been. The image of the one being, for whom his soul yearned in its desolation, with the blinding hunger of man for woman and woman's love, rose up before his eyes, and for the first time he thought of death,—death,—in its full and ghastly actuality.
What was it, this death? Was it a sleep? Merely the absence, not the privation of those powers and senses, called life? What sort of passage must the thinking particle pass through, whatever it may be,—ere it stood naked of its clay? The breaking of the eyes in darkness,—what then succeeded? Would the thinking atom survive,—would it become the nothing that it was?
The aspect of the chamber was not one to dispel the gloomy visions that haunted him. It was scantily furnished in the crude style of the tenth century, with massive tables and chairs. A curious tapestry of eastern origin, representing some legend of the martyrs, divided it from an adjoining cabinet serving at once as an oratory and sleeping apartment. A low fire, burning in the chimney to dispel the miasmas of the marshes, shed a crimson glow over the chamber and its lonely inmate.
For a long time those who watched before his door heard him walk restlessly up and down. At last weariness came over him and he threw himself exhausted into a chair. Then the haunting memory of Stephania conjured up before his half-dreaming senses an alluring, shimmering Fata Morgana—a castle on one of those far-away Apulian head-lands, with their purpling hills in the background and the scent of strange flowers in the air. On many a summer morning they should walk hand in hand through the Laburnum groves, and find their love anew. But the amber sheen of the landscape faded into the violet of night. The vision faded into nothingness. A peal of thunder reverberated through the heavens,—Otto started with a moan, rose, and staggered to his couch.
"The haunting memories of Stephania."
He closed his eyes; but sleep would not come.
Where was she now? Where was Stephania? Weeks had passed, since they had last met. It seemed an eternity indeed! He should have remained in Rome, till he was assured of her fate! She had left him with words of hatred, of scorn, bitter and cruel. And yet! How gladly he would have saved the man, his mortal enemy, forsooth, had it lain in his power. Gladly?—No! The man who had thrice forsworn, thrice broken his faith, deserved his doom. Now he was dead. But Rome was lost. What mattered it? There was but one devouring thought in Otto's mind. Where was Stephania? The mad longing for her became more intense with every moment. Now that the worst had come to pass, now that the stunning blow had fallen, he must rouse himself, he must rally. He must combat this fever, which was slowly consuming him; he must find her, see her once more on earth, if but to tell her how he loved her, her and no other woman. Would the pale phantom of Crescentius still stand between them,—still part them as of yore? Not if their loves were equal. His hands were stainless of that blood. On the morrow he would despatch Haco to Rome. Surely some one would have seen her; surely some one knew where the wife of the Senator of Rome was hiding her sorrow,—her grief.