Many hours had passed, and the gates of the shrine of St. Geneviève were opened full towards the west. The evening sunlight streamed within, warming the white stones in the floor, gilding the carved panels of the tomb. The wooden roof received the glow reflected from the stones beneath, so that its colours seemed to breathe with deepening dyes over the dead saint’s grave. Through the latticed windows roses climbed, dowering the air with a passionate incense that even in life suggested death. In the garden the cypresses, like black-robed Fates, spun the golden threads from the distaff of the west.
Tristan lay before the tomb with his great hands folded upon his breast. His eyes were turned towards the painted roof, where golden dragons seemed to move amid stars and moons, and meteor flame. Slowly his breath flowed in and ebbed under the crossed hands on his breast. Very silent was the shrine; the light seemed the more reverent for the saint’s tomb there.
Tristan turned his face towards the door with the wistful look of a stricken child listening for the sound of a mother’s voice. Little more than a year had passed away since he had knelt in the chapel of Purple Isle and watched his arms for Columbe’s sake. Then his heart had echoed back the sounding surges of the sea. Then in the high tide of youth he had heard no requiems and no ghastly cries stirring the pulses of the world. ’Twas different now; all changed the tones, the lights and shadows, the colours’ scheme. While the sunbeams slept upon the floor death seemed nearer than life itself.
A figure darkened the gate of the shrine, the figure of a woman who stood looking towards the tomb. She drew near to the place where Tristan lay on the warm stones under the painted roof. Blanche’s eyes were full of pity as she gazed on the strong man lying there, so weak and still was he, so changed in three days. Was this Tristan who had held the mountains, whose arm had been mighty in the van of battle? How white he was since the precious blood had ebbed hour by hour from the barb in his breast.
She sat herself down on the tomb’s steps beside him and felt that his eyes were fixed on hers. There was an unuttered prayer upon his lips. He looked like a man who thirsted for water, but could not crave the cup from her hands.
“Tristan, what would you?” she asked, reading in his eyes that dim desire that appealed to the woman in her like the look of a dog.
He moved restlessly upon the bed, his fingers plucking at the hem of the coverlet.
“I have no heart in me,” he said.
“No heart, Tristan?”
“To ask a boon of you at this last hour. For you have blessed me many times, nor have I aught but gratitude to give.”