“‘Slife canst not do it without my bidding?--When all in the convent is still--at midnight let it be done!--See to’t!”
“Aye, aye, my Lord, at midnight it shall be done!”
“And the Bridal,” cried the Duke, turning to the Ladye Annabel, as she rested in the arms of the Countess. “The hour after midnight shall witness the joyous scene--the marriage of the Duke and his betrothed!”
THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE RAVISHER STARTLE THE SILENCE OF THE MAIDEN’S CELL, WHILE ADRIAN PREPARES FOR HIS DOOM IN THE VAULTS BELOW.
It was in a lone chamber, where the dark walls, unrelieved by tapestry or wainscotting, were rendered yet more sad and gloomy by the fitful flashes of a taper, placed upon a small table of blackened oak.
The sable hangings of the couch standing in one corner, the floor of stone, wearing the same dead and leaden hue, the massive furniture of the room, and the grotesque carvings ornamenting the heavy pillars, all were in unison with the grave-like silence of the air, which seemed heavy with doom and burdened with death.
In the centre of the apartment, her white robes loosely flowing around her peerless form, her fair and rounded arms upraised, her head slightly inclined to one side, her cheek, now warm with hope, now pale with fear, stood the Ladye Annabel. Her hair of sunshine luxuriance was swept back over her neck and shoulders, while her bosom rose in the light, and her breath came thick and fast, the convulsive gasps, breaking the death-like silence of the apartment, with an echo of strange emphasis.
Sleep had fled from her eyelids. She arose and watched, she knew not why, but still she watched and trembled as she listened to the slightest sound.
“I listen, I tremble, and my heart is chilled with a nameless fear,” murmured the Ladye Annabel, pacing the dark floor of the apartment with indecisive and hurried steps. “The hour wears slowly on, the fatal hour after midnight, when this unrelenting Duke will claim my hand, this hand already given to another, by the minister of Heaven! Holy Mary! behold the bridal--a lonely cell, hidden in the depths of this fearful monastery, the altar of black, the dark-robed monk, the tyrant-Duke and the victim; the time, the hour after the bell has tolled midnight, no hope, no aid, afar from human consolation, or the voice of human friend--such will be the second bridal of Annabel, wife of Adrian Di Albarone!”