'
"We seated ourselves on the ottoman, and while she nestled luxuriously
among the cushions, I took my banjo and sang to her. The song and the
music resounded through the lofty room, and came back in throbbing
echoes. And before me as I sang I saw the face and form of Ethelind
Fionguala, in her jeweled bridal dress, gazing at me with burning eyes.
She was pale no longer, but ruddy and warm, and life was like a flame
within her. It was I who had become cold and bloodless, yet with the
last life that was in me I would have sung to her of love that can
never die. But at length my eyes grew dim, the room seemed to darken,
the form of Ethelind alternately brightened and waxed indistinct, like
the last flickerings of a fire; I swayed toward her, and felt myself
lapsing into unconsciousness, with my head resting on her white
shoulder."
Here Keningale paused a few moments in his story, flung a fresh log
upon the fire, and then continued:
"I awoke, I know not how long afterward. I was in a vast, empty room in
a ruined building. Rotten shreds of drapery depended from the walls,
and heavy festoons of spiders' webs gray with dust covered the windows,
which were destitute of glass or sash; they had been boarded up with
rough planks which had themselves become rotten with age, and admitted
through their holes and crevices pallid rays of light and chilly
draughts of air.
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