The princes of the night came, one by one, into the halls of Heaven, and each, from his refulgent throne, sped far and wide through space his beams of glory. The earth saw the regal train, and rejoiced, saying, “I am their sister;” then the shadows passed away from her bosom, and she stood in radiance amid her starry compeers, sending back ray for ray.

“My Lillian, let us look upon the night,” cried Kenneth—and he led her forth beneath the stars. They smiled upon the maid, and crowned her forehead with their beams, and her beauty grew as lofty and mysterious as their own.

The pair walked in silence, for each bosom throbbed heavily, with its burden of unspoken love; they walked in silence, for youth was in flushing, and they heeded not the speeding hours.

First Kenneth spoke, for man must act while woman muses, and the spells of night oppressed him.

“Look, Lillian, on the shining orbs above us, circling their mysterious round! Knowest thou, the starry firmament is a vast prophecy of things to be? Yon burning record of the decrees of fate rolls its stupendous riddles in mighty round, and mock our earnest inquiry. The learning of the Magi, the ‘Persians starry wit,’ may catch but faint and far-off glimpses of the truths they blazon yet conceal. The boasted lore of the Chaldean, reads but imperfectly their dim revealings, while the Gheber, wiser in his ignorance than either, bows in worship to the celestial mysteries he presumeth not to compass or comprehend.”

There was a majesty and gloom in the boy’s conceptions that charmed and oppressed fair Lillian; and, as woman is prone to do, she turned from all the rolling worlds of which he spoke, to the deep, silent, and no less enigmatical world of her own heart.

He looked again upon the heavens on which was written, as he believed, the fate of nations, while her meek eyes followed his, striving to read from the jeweled scroll, her own doom.

“Kenneth,” she cried, abruptly, and in awe, “I feel that I am approaching a crisis in my fate!”

“Thy fate, sweet one, is also written in letters of light above us. I am not deeply versed in heavenly lore, but from thy presentiment and mine, I read a crisis is at hand. Seest thou yon pale orb,” he continued, raising his hand aloft, “my father told me once it shone upon thy birth, and from that hour it has been the object of my vigil and study; so pale, so pure, it seemeth like thy fair face set in heaven. Of late methought it shone with sadder beam, and wandered from its track. See!” he cried with a shout, “it journeys the skies, side by side, with yon red-eyed planet.”

Lillian raised her soft eyes, and met the lurid glare of the blood-red star.

“What orb is that?” she inquired, with a shudder, clinging closer to Kenneth’s side.

“The star of my nativity!”

“Lillian! my Lillian! tremble not, beloved! hath not kind Heaven given thee to me?” He wound his arms around her frail form, and laid her to his heart.

“Dark youth, I fear thee!” she shrieked, and bursting from his embrace, fled into the night. Suddenly she paused, and covering her face with her hands, crushed the big tears that were gushing from their fountains, “ay!” she murmured, “but I love thee also!”

“Thou dost, my fawn!” said Kenneth, as he regained her side, “swear, then, to be mine.”

The maiden hesitated, for the angel whose ward she was, whispered a warning.

“Swear not, for his brow is dark and his heart fierce—his path lieth through blood, and endeth in blackness!”

Then love lifted up his voice, crying, “What grief so great as parting from thy beloved! What wo so heavy as a disappointed heart!”

And the maiden said, “I swear! Whether for good or evil, for blessing or for blight, my doom is sealed, and I am thine.”

“The crisis is past, beloved,” whispered the wooer—“where is now thy fear?”

The maiden abode in the halls of her sires, while the youth rode forth intent on valiant deeds, for ’twas in the days when a hero’s laurels were his bridal gift. But his heart was not strong in hope—neither was it girt with patience—neither was it seasoned with denial; and temptation beset him by the way and endurance failed, and when he returned, his knightly spurs were dimmed, and tarnished his knightly honor.

“Oh, spurn me not, beloved!” he cried, in agonized abasement.

And the lady answered, “Through glory and shame I will be true to thee.”

Then was Kenneth comforted by her tenderness, and strengthened by her counsels—and he went forth with hope to retrieve the errors of the past.

But the glory of his youth had departed, and the fear of God dwelt no more in his bosom; and his heart was curdled by the scorn of men, and hardened against his kind; and his right hand became a hand of power, but it was red with wrath—and injustice, and oppression, and cruelty, and wrong, and rapine, and murder, stalked in his train. Then he returned to his lady, and stood before her with a sullen brow, saying,

“By my valor have I won my bride!”

“Ah, Kenneth!” she faltered, “thou hast despised my counsels, thou hast mocked at my love; thy path hath been a path of blood, and thy crimes rise mountain-high between thee and thy affianced! Oh, why hast thou done this?”

The scales fell from his eyes in that pure presence, and looking back over the guilt of years, he felt appalled by his own sins.

“The stars, in their courses, fought against me,”^[2] he answered gloomily—“it was my destiny.”

“Oh, abandon that fearful error, and cease to burden Fate with thy misdeeds. Thy destiny hath been of thine own choosing. Didst thou not turn a deaf ear to the pleadings of all good angels? Didst thou not yield an easy prey to the devices of thine own heart? For the sake of the future, look back upon the past, and tell me if thou canst not recall the hour when two paths were spread before thee, and thou didst choose thy lot; tell me no more of destiny!”

“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.

——