hafts and groups of pillars of her ancestral
home cluster around her, and the summer flowers greet her with their
perfume. But death, not life, is in her heart. The pathway through the
old forest whitens in the coming light, the grain waves in the open
fields; beyond them, faintly flushing in the twilight, stand the
mountain tops above which _his_ star of glory might have risen that very
morn--and yet the whole horizon to him now is but the grave of eternal
forgetfulness! He gazes far into the mountains, boldly sending his last
greetings to the faithful there; while she, with drooping head, presses
ever closer to him, asking from him now the look of love, now the thrust
of death! In vain the gradual awaking of the world admonishes them more
and more loudly that they have nothing more to do with time, that
eternity is upon them--they linger still! Who may say what thoughts are
thronging through their souls! More and more heavily she sinks upon the
true heart of her brother, while the morning breeze plays with the long
tresses of her golden hair.

Hark! loud voices pledge a noisy health in one of the distant rooms--he
shudders, but perhaps she hears no longer; heavy footsteps tramp along
the gallery--the light of torches flickers in the morning breeze.

'O God, thou wilt surely give the victory to my country!' cries the
chieftain, as he carries the benumbed and half-lifeless form of the
bride within the wedding chamber.

The drunken companions of the long revel reel and totter along the
galleries of the castle; the bridegroom hastens to his bride with the
dawn of day.

'Look!' she exclaims, stretching out her hands to the great mirror
before which they stand, but in her bewilderment no longer recognizing
her own figure there: 'Look! how beautiful my angel is!'

'Ah, too beautiful!' the youth repeats, with a bitter groan; then,
pressing her to his breast with one arm, from the other flashes the
deadly gleam of glittering steel--and in that very moment the heavy
footsteps of the light-minded, reckless bridegroom reach the threshold
of the bridal chamber.

CHAPTER III.

The old man sits upon the ancient bed of state, in the room which had
been occupied by his father before him, in which his grandfathers and
great-grandfathers had lived and died. Careless of repose for his tired
and aged body, he has not undressed, but motioning off his attendants
with impatient gesture, ungirding his sabre, and throwing off the cha