Page:Stories from Old English Poetry-1899.djvu/263

Rh crimesthe dearest partner of his greatnesswas even more pitiably wretched. In the first enthusiasm of her ambition she was not appalled by any crime. She could scorn her weaker spouse because he feared to look upon the blood his hands had shed. But in her soul the revulsion of feeling had been greater and more terrible. More reticent and heroic than Macbeth, feeding on her remorse in silence lest she should add to the bitter thoughts that poisoned his life, she constrained herself to smile, and flatter, and play the part of royalty, while in her heart she carried an eternal wound, the slow agony of conscience. Nature avenged itself on the mask she wore, and in the dead of night, when she strove to forget her tortures in sleep, remorse became her conqueror. Night after night her wondering attendants watched her rise from her couch, and with a lighted taper in her hand,fast-locked in sleep, with glazed and open eyes, in which a fixed horror seemed frozen,she traversed the corridors till she reached a certain antechamber. Then with repeated rubbing of her hands, she sought to cleanse them from some fancied stains of blood. The sighs that heaved her breast were piteous enough to move even the ghost of her murdered victim, and when her frail form was wearied beyond endurance, she went back to her wretched couch, still wrapt in