“The past is ever with us,” he answered her; “the dead haunt me, stand round my bed at night. I see not flesh and blood alone, but the grey faces of those who cry to me for vengeance. They are not dead, these ghosts—Columbe, nor Samson, nor the martyrs of the Seven Streams.”
The woman leant her head upon her hand, and gazed out into the night, so that Tristan saw but the curves of her proud face and bended neck. There was pathos in her attitude, the pose of one who yearned for that which life had never fully given.
“You live for the dead,” she said again.
“Many whom I love are dead,” he answered her.
She threw a glance at him, her eyes bright with the wistfulness that she could not hide. Tristan was blind to that which was in her eyes. For the moment he thought only of Rosamunde, walled from the world in Holy Guard.
“Tristan,” she said.
“My lady.”
“Are all the loved ones dead?”
He caught a deep breath, did not answer her speedily and frankly as was his wont.
“As the heart goes,” he said; “the rest is nothingness.”