They passed on up the bare hillside with the moss-grown rocks lit by the setting sun. The perfume of the myrtle thickets scented the air, tossed abroad by the wild west wind. Over the sands rolled the rising tide, flowing fast under the flaming sky.
Thus they brought Tristan towards Holy Guard, its black walls haloed by the west. Rosamunde walked beside the bed with Tristan’s hand clasped fast in hers. The Duchess Blanche had drawn apart, a deep calm on her stately face, an unfathomable sadness filling her eyes. She had surrendered love into Rosamunde’s hands, and would fain be alone to hide the smart.
They carried Tristan through the gate, up the great stairway, and through the dim galleries into the chamber of the Abbess. There they left Rosamunde and the man alone, for Blanche would suffer none to meddle in the sacred meeting of the twain. She closed the door on them with her own hands, and passed out to the battlements to watch the sea drown the darkening sands.
In the twilight of the room Rosamunde knelt by Tristan’s bed, and bowed down her face over him as one who mourned. Through many a window the west wind moaned, and death seemed to move through the ruined house. In Rosamunde’s eyes there was a strange despair, for she had read the truth at the first glance, and her heart cried out in her as the night came down.
“Ah, Tristan,” she said, with her pride in the dust, “I have sinned against you and your love. Ah, God, must I lose all at this hour!”
“Grieve not,” he answered her, “for what is past. Fate has ever bruised our hearts; and though I die, I have love in death.”
There was a great light within his eyes, but Rosamunde’s face was hid in shadow. Not for her was the empty boast of love, the last triumph-cry of a wounded soul. She broke out suddenly into bitter weeping, and hung over Tristan as she wept.
“Love,” she said, with her words half smothered and her hair falling upon his face, “how can I lose you out of my life? O God, have pity! Is it for this that I have passed through all? Tristan, Tristan, is it death?”
Very tenderly he held her hands, and strove to comfort her as the night increased.
“It is God’s will,” he said at last. “I have fought my fight, and the end is near. And yet I shall not win the spoil, for death steps in—thus ends the day.”