The wild, wailing cry swept past her very lips as she ended her little ditty. As she heard it she trembled, and felt sure the very ground below her shook.
She began to run away, afraid, but a single word detained her—a single word, streaming through all the air—“Robert!”
“Robert!” She knew her duty was to watch over him till he had read his mother’s will, so she stood still, trembling no longer. Then she thought the sound came from a dark corner near, and lightly walking to it, she peered in, and then drew back with mighty fear. She sped quickly to a rustic cross by the roadside; she fell at its feet, and lay senseless.
Forth from the cavern came the white knight. The doom, then, was irrevocable; unless Robert freely gave himself up—and before the morrow—they would be parted. Parted from Robert, whom he loved so much. “By his own will—by his own will, he must be won.”
Suddenly he turned, as he heard a weak womanly cry, and he saw Alice lying at the foot of the cross.
“Thou here, Alice? What ailest thee? Thou dost draw away. Nearer—come nearer; nearer, I say. Dost fear me?”
Still she clung to the cross, the closer and more firmly as he approached.
“What didst thou hear?”
“Nothing.”
“What didst thou see?”