Lenore’s two hands went up in an agony of entreaty. Courtoise maintained his silence. There was in the great hall a stillness that the rushing of the storm could not affect. Alixe moved back to the door, and barred it once more against the attacks of the wind. At the same time another figure appeared on the stairs. Madame Eleanore, fully dressed, her hair bound round with a metal filet, came rapidly down and joined the little group. Lenore was as one groping through a mist. She knew, vaguely, when madame came; but it meant nothing to her. Now she repeated, in the pleading tone of a child that begs for some sweet withheld from it by its elder,—

“Thou bringest a packet from my lord, Courtoise? Sweet Courtoise, deliver it to my hand. My lord sendeth me a letter, is it not so?”

A low cry, inarticulate, heart-broken, came from the lips of the esquire; and therewith he fell upon his knees before the young Lenore and held up his two hands as if to ward off from her the blow that he should deal. “Madame!” he said; and, for some reason, Lenore cowered before him.

Then Eleanore came up to them, her face milk-white, her eyes burning; and, laying her hand upon the young man’s shoulder, she said softly: “Speak, Courtoise! Tell us what is come to thy lord. In pity for us, delay no more.”

Courtoise looked up to her, and saw how deeply haggard her face seemed. Then the world grew great and black; and out of the surrounding darkness came his voice, “The Seigneur is dead. Lord Gerault is killed of a spear-thrust that he got in the lists at Rennes. They bear him homeward now.”

A deep groan, born of this, her final world-wound, came from Eleanore’s gray lips. Alixe gave a long scream, and then fell forward upon her knees and began to mutter senseless words of prayer. Courtoise huddled himself up on the floor, and let fatigue and grief strive for the mastery over him. Only Lenore uttered no sound. She, the youngest of them there, and the most bereaved, stood perfectly still. One of her hands was pressed hard against her forehead; and she looked as if she were trying to recall some forgotten thing. Presently she whispered to herself a few indistinguishable words, and a faint smile hovered round her lips. Finally, seeing the piteous plight of Courtoise, she laid one hand upon his lowered head and said gently,—

“Courtoise, thou art weary, and wet, and spent with riding. Rise, dear squire, and seek thy bed, and rest. ’Tis very late—and thou’rt so weary. Go to thy rest.”

Eleanore looked at her, the frail girl, in amazement. Then she came round and took Lenore’s hand, and said: “Thou sayest well; ’tis very late, Lenore, and thou art also lightly clad. Come thou to thy bed, and let Alixe to hers. Come, my girl.”

Lenore made no resistance, and went with madame toward the stairs; Alixe stared after them as if they had both been mad, for she had never known a blow that stuns the brain. Lenore suffered herself to be led quietly up the stairs, and, reaching her own room, which was dark save for the light that came through from madame’s open door, she dropped off her wide bliault, and lay down, shivering slightly, in the cold bed. She was numb and drowsy. Madame, bending over her, watched and saw the eyelids slowly close over her great blue eyes, till they were fast shut; and the young Lenore slept—slept as sweetly as a babe.

Of the night, however, that madame spent, who dares to speak in unexpressive words? What the slow-passing, dark-robed hours brought her, who shall say? Her last loss broke her spirit; and she felt that underneath the heavy, all-powerful hand of the Creator-Destroyer, none might stand upright and hope to live. Gerault had suffered, as now he gave, great sorrow. Eleanore had never felt herself close to his heart, as she had once been close to the heart of that daughter whom she had sacrificed to an unwilling God. But now, in the knowledge of his death, the memory of Gerault’s coldness and of his elected solitude went from her, and she recalled only the justice, the strength, the self-reliance of him. Gradually her memory drew her back through his manhood, through his youth and his boyhood, to the time of his infancy, when the little, helpless, dark-eyed babe had come to bless the loneliness of her own young life. And with this memory, at last, came tears,—those divine tears that can wash the direst grief free of its bitterness.

As the dawn showed in the east, and rose triumphant over the dying storm, madame crept to her bed, and laid her weary body on the kindly resting-place, and slept.

At half-past six the sun lifted above the eastern hills, and looked forth from a clear, green sky, over a land freshly washed, glittering with dew, and new-colored with brighter green and gold and red for the glorification of the September day. The sea, bringing great breakers in from the pathless west, was spread with a carpet of high-rolling gold, designed to cover all the new-stolen treasures gathered by night and stored within its treacherous, malignant depths. But the world poured fragrant incense to the sun, and the sun showered gold on the sea, and in this sacrificial worship Nature expiated her dire passion of the night.

It was fair daylight when Lenore opened her eyes and sat up in her bed to greet the morning. She was glad indeed to escape from the fetters of sleep, for her dreams had been feverish things. In them she had wandered abroad over the gray battlements, and through the grim chambers of dimly lighted CrÉpuscule, and had seen and heard terrible things. Lenore smiled to herself at the thought that all were past. And then, creeping over her, came the black shadow of reality, of memory. There was the storm—her sleeplessness—Alixe—the story of the lost Lenore—were these dreams? And then—finally—God!—the coming of Courtoise—and—

With a sharp cry Lenore sprang from the bed, flung her purple mantle upon her, and ran wildly through the adjoining room into that of madame. Eleanore, roused from her light sleep by that cry, had risen and met her daughter near the door. Lenore needed but one glance into madame’s colorless face. Then she knew that she had not dreamed in the past night. Her horrible visions were true.

Physical refreshment brought her a terrible power: the power of suffering. There could not now be any numb acceptance of facts. Eleanore herself was shocked at the change that a few seconds wrought in the young face. Yet still Lenore shed no tears, made no exhibition of her grief. Quietly, with the stillness of death about her movements, she returned to her room and began to dress herself. Before she had finished her toilet, Alixe crept in, white-faced and red-eyed, to ask if there were any service she might do. Lenore tremulously bade her wait till her hair was bound; and then she said: “Let Courtoise be brought in to me, here.”

“Wilt thou not first eat—but a morsel of bread—nay, a sup of wine?” pleaded Alixe.

Lenore looked at her. “How should I eat or drink? Let Courtoise be brought to me.”

Obediently Alixe went and found Courtoise loitering about the foot of the stairs in the hall below. He ascended eagerly when Alixe gave him her message, and entered alone into the room where sat Lenore.

Through two long hours Alixe and the demoiselles and young esquires, a stricken, silent company, huddled together at the table in the long room, sat and waited the coming of Courtoise. There was nothing to be done in the Castle save to wait; and it seemed to them all that they would rather work like slaves than sit thus, inert and silent, and with naught to do but think of what had come upon Le CrÉpuscule. They knew that the body of Gerault was on its way home. A henchman had long since started off for St. Nazaire to acquaint the Bishop with the news and bring him back to the Castle. Also, Anselm and the captain of the keep had lifted the great stone in the floor of the chapel, that led into the vault below. This was all there was to be done now, until the last home-coming of their lord.

At ten o’clock Courtoise appeared on the threshold of the long room, and his face bore a light as of transfiguration. As he went in and halted near the doorway, the little company rose reverently, and waited for him to speak. He turned to Alixe, but it was a moment or two before he could get his voice and control it to speak.

“Alixe—Alixe—Madame Lenore hath asked for you—asks that you come to her.”

Alixe rose at once, and the two went out together into the hall. There, however, Courtoise halted, saying, in a low, almost reverent tone: “She is in her chamber. I am to remain here below.”

Alixe turned her white face and her bright green eyes upon him questioningly. “How doth she bear herself? Doth she yet weep?” she asked in a half-whisper.

“She doth not weep. Ah, God! the Seigneur married an angel out of heaven, Alixe, and never knew it; and now can never know!”

“He was our lord, Courtoise. Reproach not the dead.”

Courtoise bent his head without speaking, and Alixe went on, up to Lenore’s chamber, the door of which stood half open. Alixe went softly in, and found Lenore sitting alone by the window, where madame had just left her. Silently the widowed girl put out both hands to Alixe, and, as Alixe went over to her, the tears began to run from her eyes. It was this sight of tears that first broke through Lenore’s wonderful self-control. Springing to her feet, with a choking, hysterical cry she flung both arms around Alixe’s neck, and wailed out, in that breathless monotone that children sometimes use: “Alixe! Alixe! Why is it that I cannot die? O Alixe! Alixe! Pray God to let me die!”

At four o’clock in the afternoon Monseigneur de St. Nazaire arrived at the Castle. The body of the fallen knight had not yet come. Watchers had been placed in every tower to catch the first sight of the funeral train; but all day long they had strained their eyes in vain. At last, when the sun was near the horizon, and the golden shadows were long over the land, and the sky was haloed with a saintly glow, up, out of the cool depths of the forest, on the winding, barren road that rose toward the Castle on the cliff, came a wearily moving company of men and horses. There were six riders, who, with lances reversed, rode three on a side of a broad, heavy cart, of which the burden was covered with a great, black cloth, embroidered in one corner with the ducal arms of Brittany.

The drawbridge was already lowered. In the courtyard an orderly company of henchmen and servants stood waiting to see the funeral car drive in. The Castle doors were open, and in their space stood the Bishop, with a priest at his right hand and, on his left, Courtoise, black-clothed, and white and calm. In front of the doorway the cart halted, and immediately the six gentlemen of Rennes, who had drawn Gerault from the fatal lists and had of their own desire brought him home, dismounted, and, after reverently saluting the Bishop, went to the cart and lifted out the stretcher. This, its burden still covered with the black cloth, they carried into the Castle and deposited in the chapel on the high, black bier made ready for it.

Madame Eleanore, Alixe, and the demoiselles, but not Lenore, were in the chapel waiting. When the burden of the litter had been placed, and the black cloth drawn close over the dead body, Eleanore, who till this time had been upon her knees before the altar, came forward to greet the six knightly gentlemen, and all of them, as they returned her sad salute, were struck with her impenetrable dignity. Her salutation at once thanked them, greeted them, and dismissed them from the chapel; and indeed they had no thought of staying to watch this first meeting of the living with the dead; but, returning obeisance to the mother of their comrade, they left the holy room and found Courtoise outside, waiting to conduct them to the refreshment that had been prepared.

So was Eleanore left alone before her dead. Behind her, near the altar, knelt the maidens, weeping while they prayed. The tall candles around the bier were yet unlighted; but through one of the high windows came a last ray of sunlight, to bar the mourning-cloth with royal gold.

For a moment, clasping both hands before her, in her silent strain, Eleanore stood still before the bier. Then, moving forward, she lifted the edge of the covering, and drew it away from the head and shoulders of her son.

There was he,—Gerault. There was he, scarcely whiter or more still than she had seen him many times in life; yet he was dead: transparent and pinched and ineffably still, and dead! The head was bare of any cap or helmet, and the black locks and beard were smoothly combed. The broad, fair brow was calm and unwrinkled. The mouth, scarce concealed by the mustache, was curved into an expression of great peace.

Madame took the cover again, and drew it slowly down till the whole form lay before her. His armor had been removed, and he was clothed in silken vestments that hid all trace of his wound. The hands were folded fair across his breast; his feet were cased in long velvet shoes, fur-bordered. From the peacefulness of his attitude it was difficult to imagine the scene by which he had met his end: the great flashing and clashing of arms, the blare of trumpets, the shouting applause of thousands of fair onlookers, gayly clothed ladies, who, after their shouting, saw him fall.

Long Eleanore stood there, looking upon him as he lay, untroubled now by any human thing. And as she looked, many world-thoughts rose up within her as to his life, his griefs, and the manner of his going. She had had him always: had borne, and reared, and watched, and loved him; and he had loved her, she knew, though he had seldom shown it, and had lived much within himself. She yearned—ah, how she yearned!—to take him now into her arms again, and croon over him, and soothe him, as a mother soothes her children. Alas, that he did not need it of her! Her breast heaved twice or thrice, with deep, suppressed sobs. Then she fell upon her knees, and leaned her forehead over upon an edge of his robe while she prayed. And as she knelt there, twilight gathered over the sunset glow, and the chapel grew dim and gray with coming darkness.

After a long while madame rose and turned to Alixe, who stood near, looking at her and weeping. And madame said gently: “Alixe, let her be summoned—little Lenore—his wife. She should be here.”

Alixe bowed silently, and went away out of the room. Eleanore remained in her place, and the demoiselles still knelt under the crucifix. Then came footboys, with tapers, to light the candles. Presently the bier was haloed with yellow flames, and the marble altar blazed with lights. The hour for the mass was near, and the people of the Castle, and a few country folk, clothed in their best, began to come softly into the chapel, by twos and threes. All, after bowing to the cross and pausing for a few seconds to look upon Gerault, passed over to the far side of the room, and knelt there, absorbed in prayer. The little room was more than half filled, when Courtoise, pale and wide-eyed, appeared upon the threshold, and, holding up his hand, whispered to the throng,—

“Madame Lenore is here! Peace, and be still! Madame Lenore comes in!”

Immediately Lenore walked into the room, and men held their breath at sight of her. She was dressed as for a bridal, in robes of stiff, white damask, her mantle fastened at her throat with a silver pin, and her silver-woven wedding-veil falling over her from the filet that confined it. White as death itself she was, and staring straight before her, seeing nothing of the throng of onlookers. For a moment her eyes were blinded by the blaze of light. Then she started forward, to the body of her lord.

When she entered, her two hands had been tightly clenched, and she had thought to restrain herself from any outbreak of grief before the people. But the living were forgotten now. Here before her was the face that she had loved so wofully, that she had hungered for so unspeakably. Here was he, the giver of her one brief hour of unutterable happiness; the cause of so many days and nights of tremulous woe. Here he lay, waiting not for her nor for anything, with no power to give her greeting when she came. Yet it was he; it was his face.

“Gerault—Gerault—my lord!” she whispered softly, as if he slept: “Gerault!” She was beside him, and had taken one of the rigid hands in both her warm, living ones. “My lord, my beloved, wilt not turn thy face to me? I have waited long for thy kiss. Prithee, give but a little of thy love; seem but to notice me, and I will be well content. Nay, but thou surely wilt! Surely, surely, beloved, thou wilt not pass me by!”

She had been covering the hand she held with kisses, but now she put it from her, and looked down upon the passive body, her eyes wide and hurt, and her mouth tremulous with his repulse. The spectators watched this pitiable scene with fascinated awe; and it seemed not to occur to one of them to prevent what followed. None there realized that Lenore was unbalanced: that to her, Gerault was still alive. She bent over, and put her lips to his. Then, burned and tortured by the unresponsiveness of the clay, she laid herself down upon the bier and put her head in the hollow of Gerault’s neck, where it had been wont to rest.

Now, at last, two of that watching company started forward to prevent a continuance of the scene. Courtoise and the Bishop went to her with one impulse; took her—monseigneur by the hands, Courtoise about the body; loosened her clasp upon the form of her dead husband, and drew her gently away from the bier. She, spent and shaken with her grief, made no resistance, but lay quietly back in their arms, trembling and weak. Thereupon both men looked helplessly toward Madame Eleanore, to know what should be done. She, strained almost to the point of breaking, came and stood over the form of Lenore and said to Courtoise,—

“She cannot remain here. ’Tis too terrible for her. Carry her up to her room, whither Alixe shall follow her. But I must remain here till the mass is said.”

Both of the men would gladly have acted upon this suggestion; but madame had not finished speaking when Lenore began to struggle in their arms, crying piteously the while:

“Nay! Let me stay! In the name of mercy, let me not be sent from him. I will not seek again to disturb his rest. I will be very quiet—very still. I will not even weep. I will but kneel here upon the stones, and will not speak through all the mass, so that you take me not out of his sight. Methinks he might care to have me here; it might be his wish that I should remain unto the end. Have pity, gentle Courtoise! Pity, monseigneur!”

At once they granted her request, and released her; for indeed her plea was more than any of the three could well endure. The Bishop was beyond speech, and the tears were streaming from Courtoise’s eyes as he left her side. Lenore kept her word. She knelt down upon the stones, two or three feet from the bier; and, with head bent low and hands clasped upon her breast, strove to force her thoughts to God and high heaven. St. Nazaire at once began the mass for the dead, and never had any man more reverence done him or more tears shed for him than the stern and silent Lord of CrÉpuscule, who, it seemed, had formed a light of life for Lenore the golden-haired. After the beginning of the service, she was left unnoticed where she had placed herself; and, as the minutes passed, her strained figure settled nearer and nearer to the floor; the candle-light played more joyously with her glorious hair; and finally, as the mass neared its end, she sank quietly down upon the stones, unconscious and released from tears at last.

A few moments later, Courtoise and Alixe bore her gently up the great stairs, and laid her, in her white bridal robes, upon her lonely bed. It was thus that she left Gerault; thus that her youth and her love met their end, and her long twilight of widowhood began.

Another morning dawned, in tender primrose tints, and saluted the sea through a low-clinging September haze. The Castle rose at the usual hour, and dressed, and descended to the morning meal, scarce able to understand that there was any change in the usual quiet existence. It was impossible, indeed, to realize that, in two little days of sun and storm, the life of the Castle had died, its mainstay had broken, and that henceforth it must exist only in memories. On this day two of the squires made their adieux to madame, and hied them forth to seek a lord by whom to be trained yet more thoroughly for knighthood; and mayhap to get themselves a little more familiar with its third article.^[3] But Courtoise, all heart-broken as he was, and Roland de St. Bertaux, and Guy le TrouvÉ, being all of gentle blood, but without other home to seek, came to their lady and kissed her hand, and swore her eternal allegiance and service. And the demoiselles, who had, indeed, no need of a lord in the Castle, renewed their duty to their mistress, and also tried to give her what little comfort they knew, in the shape of certain of Anselm’s Latin texts, and a few less pithy but warmer phrases of their own making. The six knights that had brought Gerault home, rode off again, sadly bearing with them Eleanore’s brave messages of loyalty and thanks to Duke Jean in Rennes. The Bishop of St. Nazaire sent his assistant priest home; but he himself elected to remain for a day or two, knowing that, should Lenore become seriously ill, he would be a stay for Madame Eleanore. Of Eleanore herself there were no fears. She was too strong to cause any one anxiety for her health. Indeed, it was generally thought that she had put Gerault too much away. How that may be is not certain; but there was nothing now in the Castle to speak of him. The chapel was empty; the mouth of the great vault had closed once more, this time to hide under its grim weight the last of the line of CrÉpuscule.

On the second day after the funeral, Eleanore, knowing by bitter experience how excellent a cure for melancholy is hard work, betook herself and the demoiselles up to the spinning-room as usual. Lenore only, of the company, was missing. She, by madame’s own bidding, still kept her bed,—lying there silent, patient, asking no attendance from any one; listening hour by hour to the soft sound of the sea as it broke upon the cliffs far below her window. Of what was in her heart, what things she saw in her day dreams, neither Alixe nor madame sought to learn. But there was something in her face, thin, wan, transparent as it had grown, that sent a great fear to Eleanore’s heart, and caused her to watch over Lenore with deep anxiety; and it seemed as if the effort of walking would break the last vestige of strength in that frail body.

Through the first day of return to the old routine, madame was fully occupied in making a pretence at cheerfulness and in inducing those around her to hide their sadness. But afterwards, when chatter and smiles began to come naturally back to the young lips, and the gayety of youth to shine from their eyes again, she suddenly relaxed her strain, and let her mind sink into what depths it would. How dim with misery was the September air! Hope had gone out of her life; and the thought of joy was a mockery. Throughout her whole world there was not a single spot of brightness on which to feast her tired eyes. Even imagination had fled, and there remained to her only a vista of unending, monotonous days, the one so like the other that she should soon forget the passage of time. And this future was inevitable. Le CrÉpuscule was here, and she must keep to it. She had no other refuge save a nunnery; and that merest suggestion was terrible to her. Gerault’s widow, the young Lenore, was left; yet she would be infinitely happier to go back to the home of her youth. There was a cry of despair in Eleanore’s heart at this realization, and she fought with herself for a long time before finally she was wrought to the point of going to Lenore and counselling her return to her father’s roof. Yet Eleanore brought herself to this; for she felt that this last sacrifice was one of duty: that she had no right forever to shut the youth and beauty of the young life into the grim shadows of Le CrÉpuscule.

On the evening of the third day of her new struggle Eleanore went, with woe in her heart, to the door of Lenore’s room. The apartment was flooded with the light of sunset, so that Lenore, lying in the very midst of it, seemed to be resting in a sea of glowing gold. When Eleanore entered, the young girl turned, with a little smile of pleasure, and said,—

“Thou’rt very kind to come to me here while I lie thus in idlesse. Indeed, I see not how thou shouldst bear with me that I do nothing when all the Castle is at work.”

“Bear with thee! My child, thou hast given us nothing to bear. Thou hast rather brought into the Castle a light that will burn always in our hearts. And, in thy great grief, thou shalt get what comfort may be for thee from whatever thou canst find. Now, indeed, dear child, I am come to make a pleading that breaketh my heart; yet we have done so much wrong to thy fair young life, that it is not in me further to blight it.” She went over to the bedside, and Lenore, sitting up, took one of the strong white hands in her own delicate fingers and pressed it to her lips. Then, while Eleanore bent close over her, she said softly,—

“What is this thing that pains thee? Surely thou’lt not think that I could do aught to hurt thee?”

“Yes, for this will bring happiness back into thy heart.”

“Happiness!”

“Yes, Lenore, happiness. That word sounds strange in thine ears from me; yet listen while I speak. Gerault, my dead son, brought thee out of a life of sunshine and gayety and fair youth into this grim Twilight Castle; and now thou hast entered, with all of us, from twilight into blackest night. But thou hast in thee what is lacking in me, and in those that dwell here as part of our race; thou’rt young, and thou hast had a joyous youth. Thou knowest what I long since forgot: that, in this world, there is a country of happiness. Now it is I, Gerault’s mother, that bids thee leave these shades of ours and return to thy real home. I bid thee go back again into thy youth, to thy father’s house, whither, if thou wilt, I will myself in all love convey thee; and I will tell thy father how thou hast been unto me all that—more than—a daughter should be; that I love thee as one of my own blood; that I am sore to give thee up—”

“Madame! Madame Eleanore! Thou must not give me up! Surely thou wilt not!” Lenore turned a quivering face up to the other; and madame read her expression with deep amazement.

“Give thee up! Do I not tell thee that at the thought my heart is like to break? Nay, thou’rt my daughter always; and when thou wilt, this is thy home. Yet for the sake of thy youth—”

“Madame—” Lenore sat up straighter, and looked suddenly off to the windows of her room, her face by turns gone deathly white and rosy red: “madame, this Twilight Castle is my double home. Here dwelt Gerault, my beloved lord, and—and here shall dwell his child—the child that is to be born to me—the new Lord of Le CrÉpuscule.”

“Lenore!—Lenore!”

“My mother!”

Then, as the sunset died from the distant west, these two women, united as never before, sat together upon Gerault’s bed, clasping each other close and mingling their tears and their laughter in a joy that neither had thought to know again.