Page:The Story and Song of Black Roderick.djvu/18

10 was indeed the Earl's bride, but, alack! she was divorced from his heart and was naught to his days.

Never did she sit by his knee when he drew his chair by the fire, weary from the chase, nor lean beside him while he slept, to wonder at her happiness. Down the great halls she went, looking through the narrow windows on the outside world, as a brown moth flutters at the pane, weary of an imprisonment that had in its hold the breath of death.

Weary and pale grew she, and more morose and stern the Black Earl, and of their tragedy there seemed no end. But when a year had nigh passed, one rosy morning a servant-lass met Black Roderick as he came from his chamber, her eyes heavy with tears.

And of what she said I shall sing, lest thou grow weary of my prose:

‘Alas!’ she said, ‘Earl Roderick, 'Tis well that you should know That each gray eve, lone wandering, My mistress dear doth go.