Rodolf withdrew into his own apartment.  His countenance looked anxious and disturbed.  He sat down, but his restlessness seemed to increase.  His posture was not the most easy and graceful that might be desired, nor calculated to set off his personal advantages, though now become the more needful, if, as the seer predicted, he should wive ere night—­albeit his bride were yet unsought—­nor wooed, nor won!  Nothing could be more destructive to that easy self-satisfaction, that seductive and insinuating carriage, so essential to the fine gentleman of every age.  There was a sort of angular irregularity in his movements, neither pleasant nor becoming; and his agitation so far overcame his better breeding that he really did cram his beard between at least three of his fingers.  His rapier had, moreover, poked its way through his cloak, and the bright shoe-roses were nigh ruined, from the sudden crossings and disarrangements they had undergone.  A considerable time had now elapsed; in the meanwhile his impatience had risen to an alarming height, insomuch that we would not have answered for the safety of his red cloth hose and silken doublet, had not noon been happily announced.

Raising the latch of the seer’s chamber with considerable eagerness, he found the room completely dark.  An unseen hand led him to a seat.  Soon he heard a low murmuring chant, as though from voices at a remote distance.  By degrees the words grew more articulate, shaping themselves into the same quaint distich that Kelly had repeated,—­

    “The stranger that hither comes o’er the broad sea
    Shall wed on the night of St Bartlemy.”

This was answered in a voice of considerable pathos; a burst of soft music filling up the interval.  Gradually the eye began to feel sensible of the presence of surrounding objects, though in the ordinary way nothing could be distinguished; a faculty peculiarly sensitive with the loss of sight, and not quite dormant in the general mass of mankind.  A faint gleam was soon perceptible, like the first blush of morning, apparently on the opposite side of the chamber.  Becoming brighter, flashes of a dim, rainbow-coloured light crept slowly by, like the aurora sweeping over an illuminated cloud.  Suddenly he saw, or his eyes deceived him, a female form shaping itself from these chaotic elements.  But it was observed only during the short intervals when the beams seemed to kindle with unusual brightness.  Every flash, however, rendered the appearance more distinct.  Dazzled and bewildered, the heated senses were become the victims of their own credulity, the mind receiving back its own reactions.  Taking its impression probably from the occurrences of the morning, the eye rapidly moulded the figure into the likeness of Kate.  Her eyes were turned upon him, beaming with that soft and melting expression he had so recently beheld.  It was but momentary, or he could have persuaded himself that she looked on him with an air the most tender and compassionate.  Never did fancy portray her in a form so lovely.  Deep and indelible was the impression; and though it might be