CONCLUSION.
S
Slowly, slowly, days, weeks, and months, went by; and yet the Baron and Lovel searched the castle, now gloomy as a prison. They broke the ice and had the moat dragged; but there were found only the slimy things that swim in still water, and Ban went to the bottom of a deep well in the lowest cellar, and found nothing; nor, from that fatal hour, could anything be guessed, save that Ginevra was not.
Spring came, with birds across the sea; the home wind, the sweet breath of summer brought lilies and violets; the nightingale sang to the roses; but its song could not reach the ear of Ginevra. Lovel wore her picture in his bosom, painted as when last he saw her, laughing and looking back, her finger up, as though she said: “Beware!” The artist caught the very glance of her eye, so winning, yet so arch, it haunts me still, like some wild melody; for I have seen a copy of that self-same picture hanging in the old palace of the Orsini, at Modena.
Man resting on sofa
Many a lady of the land would have walked barefooted to London to win a smile from Lord Lovel; but he never smiled again. His heart was empty as some lone nest clinging to wintry boughs, from which the green leaves have fallen and the singing birds have flown.
With haggard face and sunken eyes he hunted that wide and weary castle, and when a year had gone, he said: “There is no hope. I cannot rest here nor live elsewhere; and so I will throw my life away in battle with the Turk.”
The Baron gave him a silver shield and his own sword.
“Take it, my son,” said he. “Thou canst try the magic of its blade and strike for Holy Cross; as for me, I shall never mount horse again.” Then he leaned on Lovel’s neck, and wept sorrowing, knowing they would see each other on earth no more.
In front of battle, Lovel looked death in the face as if he loved it. He fell on the bloody sands of Holy Land, and amid the dead and dying, they buried him where he lay, wrapped in his cloak, his good sword by his side, the sweet picture of his lost love shining on his breast.
Geta and Alfred were married, and the voices of their children were heard as they played about the castle. At Christmas time,when snow whirled through the air, and wind moaned through the halls, they would huddle round the fire, saying to each other: “I hear my Lady’s footstep on the stairs;” or, “she is flying through the forest. I see her white robe in the trees. She is coming near, and will call us soon.”
Some said Ginevra was spirited away in the storm; some, that a robber from the forest stole her. Many thought her so pure and good the angels had carried her to heaven without dying. But these were idle tales. Where she went none ever knew, nor was she heard of more.
The Baron never rested from his search. All day the old man, wrinkled and bent, groped his way through doleful chambers, and even into the dreadful dungeon, hunting his darling child; and often, at dead of night, his torch flamed through the windows of some far tower, or along the merlons of the dizzy battlements. One day he was found lying on the staircase, her little slippers, yellow and faded, held tightly in his hand. The dull, deep pain was over; the aching feet at rest; his search was ended, never again to begin. They laid him in the vault, among the crumbling bones of his fathers, where he sleeps well.
Chest in alcove
Years and years and years went by, and the castle stoodempty. It gave no sign of life. The owl and crow were dead, the pavements grown with moss, the rose-garden a waste of weeds. Hangings dropped in rags from black and moldy walls; the drawbridge rotted in the green and stagnant waters of the moat; the flagstaff fell and went to dust upon the roof; and over all hung a cloud of fear and dread. So it was told something ailed the place—that it was haunted. Nothing stirred the old shadows; they lay like death, year after year; and there were no whisperings of warrior or maiden. They were with the still sleepers who dream no dreams.
When a hundred years had passed, the castle was bought by strangers; and one day workmen, repairing the grand staircase, saw a gap in the wall. A secret door had rusted from its hinges, and fallen into a room that looked dark as a grave.
There stood an old oak chest, worm-eaten and mildewed, its iron bands coated with rust, and a light-hearted girl, young and thoughtless as Ginevra, said: “Let us take it from this place, and see what it holds.”
The workmen slowly dragged it toward the light, but on the way it fell, it burst; and lo, a skeleton! Around its head, to which the golden hair yet clung, a coronet of pearls; here andthere an emerald stone in a clasp holding shreds of gold, and in the dust that once had been a hand, a wedding-ring engraved—“Ginevra.”
“There, then, had she found a grave!Within that chest had she concealed herself,Fluttering with joy, the happiest of the happy,When a spring-lock, that lay in ambush there,Fastened her down forever!”
“There, then, had she found a grave!Within that chest had she concealed herself,Fluttering with joy, the happiest of the happy,When a spring-lock, that lay in ambush there,Fastened her down forever!”
“There, then, had she found a grave!Within that chest had she concealed herself,Fluttering with joy, the happiest of the happy,When a spring-lock, that lay in ambush there,Fastened her down forever!”
“There, then, had she found a grave!
Within that chest had she concealed herself,
Fluttering with joy, the happiest of the happy,
When a spring-lock, that lay in ambush there,
Fastened her down forever!”
Knight lying on platform