She threatened him, but it was useless. Soon she was gazing after him as he wended his way down a mountain pass.
Go we now to the cloisters of the convent, where the luckless Lady Leonora was about to take the vows that were to separate her for ever from the world.
Love had humiliated and degraded the count, as it hath humiliated and degraded many a better man. As he could not honestly possess himself of the Lady Leonora, he had now come to steal her—tear her away from the altar. He had not come alone, for love had also made him a coward. He had brought with him a score or so of his followers to snatch her from amongst a host of women.
See them hiding behind pillars, and in shadows, creeping softly and meanly, as robbers and cowards do.
Then came the widowed Lady Leonora, surrounded by old friends, who would fain accompany her to the door of her life-long prison.
She sighed as she heard the low religious chant from within the walls of the convent—henceforth to shut in all her hopes. But she was determined. He was dead—her love. Killed on the battle-field, and she would mourn for him in the silence of a convent cell.
“With good, hearty old friends,” said she to the attendants about her, “see me to the altar, and then—a long farewell.”
But as she turned towards the sacred door the count came quickly from behind a broken pillar, and tremblingly said, “Nought can save thee—thou art mine.”
“Mercy!”