He strode quickly to the door of the tower, and spoke rapidly to the gaoler within it; but she had had time to offer herself a sacrifice to her honest love. She took the ring from off her finger, opened a little receptacle in it, removed from it a small grey pellet, and swallowed it. “Thou shalt have a dead bride,” she whispered. When he again turned towards her, her hands were pressed to her sides.
“Saved, saved,” she cried to herself, as the count—smiling now for the first time for a weary while—took her right hand and courteously led her to the grand hall of the castle.
Enter the hopeless prison, in which the gipsey and the troubadour were trying to console each other as each weary moment rolled away.
She was lying on the bare ground; he sitting at her feet, his hands crossed, and smiling as he looked upon her.
“Dost thou sleep, dear mother?”
“There is no time for sleep, my son.”
“Thou tremblest with cold.”
“This is a tomb. I would we could escape.”
“Escape!”