Then whilst his throbbing veins beat high With every impulse of delight,
Dash from his lips the cup of joy,
And shroud the scene in shades of night;
And let despair, with wizard light,
Disclose the yawning gulf below,
And pour incessant on his sight,
Her spectred ills and shapes of woe.
For some moments Robert sat there, apparently dead to his surroundings. He had not looked up or moved as the door closed upon the retreating figures. He seemed to be in a state of complete exhaustion of mind and body. Presently the sound of the carriage rolling over the swishing, muddy driveway roused him from his lethargy. Raising his head he looked wildly around the room—then paused and listened—he was as one in a dream, realizing nothing plainly. He could hardly remember what had taken place during the past few minutes; he could grasp nothing tangible in thought or memory, till with a wild start he seemed to awake, as the rattle of the passing wheels brought back recollection. He staggered to the window and, throwing back the lattice, gazed out at the rapidly retreating blur of moving wheels and horses and shapeless figures, and watched it till it was lost to sight. As he stood there a soft[394] change, a delicate transparency, swept over the dark bosom of the sky. Pale pink streaks glittered on the dusky horizon—darts of light began to climb upward into the clouds, and to plunge downward upon the waving field of hay; the radiance spread swiftly, till suddenly the whole heavens were bathed in the glorious light, and the last cloud, fading into nothingness, revealed the sun in all its matchless glory, hanging low in the sky just above the hills, behind which it would soon drop in stately splendor. Slowly the watcher sank down to his knees and leaned his tired head against the sash, his eyes closed and sunken.
“She is gone, gone,” he murmured brokenly, “an’ I am left all alone noo, ............