“My lady hath forgotten her meekness as well as her love.”
“Kenneth, reproach me not! I have wasted my youth in vigils for thee; I have watched, and wept, and waited, now in hope, and anon in hopelessness, until sorrow shadowed my father’s halls, and mildew settled down on my heart. Now in the depths of my despair I love thee still, but I dare not wed thee! Go in peace; if man may ever meddle with his fate, mine shall be of my own moulding.”
“Fashion it as thou wilt,” he answered fiercely, “I will come to claim thee in the appointed hour!”
Fair Lillian sitteth in her husband’s home, but a great shadow lieth athwart the hearth; ’tis the memory of an earlier, wilder, fonder love; and the fierce fame of her warrior, reacheth her ever, terrible as the roar of distant battle.
| [2] | The stars in their courses fought against Sisera. Judges, chap. v., verse 20. |
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HOUR II.—The Consummation.
The princes of the night mounted their flaming steeds and coursed through heaven. Lillian sat in widow’s weeds, and watched them from her great round tower. Suddenly the clang of a mailed heel rung on the winding stair, and her cheek paled—for those halls no longer echoed with martial sounds since Lord Ulric had been gathered home. Near and more near, loud and more loud, and a warrior strode into the apartment, and folded the lady in his embrace!