Even Amy was for a moment interested by what was to her so new a scene.
"I had thought it magical art," she said, "but poor Tressilian taught me
to judge of such things as they are. Great God! and may not these idle
splendours resemble my own hoped-for happiness--a single spark, which is
instantly swallowed up by surrounding darkness--a precarious glow,
which rises but for a brief space into the air, that its fall may be the
lower? O Leicester! after all--all that thou hast said--hast sworn--that
Amy was thy love, thy life, can it be that thou art the magician
at whose nod these enchantments arise, and that she sees them as an
outcast, if not a captive?"
The sustained, prolonged, and repeated bursts of music, from so many
different quarters, and at so many varying points of distance, which
sounded as if not the Castle of Kenilworth only, but the whole country
around, had been at once the scene of solemnizing some high national
festival, carried the same oppressive thought still closer to her heart,
while some notes would melt in distant and falling tones, as if in
compassion for her sorrows, and some burst close and near upon her, as
if mocking her misery, with all the insolence of unlimited mirth. "These
sounds," she said, "are mine--mine, because they are HIS; but I cannot
say, Be still, these loud strains suit me not; and the voice of the
meanest peasant that mingles in the dance would have more power to
modulate the music than the command of her who is mistress of all."
By degrees the sounds of revelry died away, and the Countess withdrew
from the window at which she had sat listening to them. It was night,
but the moon afforded considerable light in the room, so that Amy was
able to make the arrangement which she judged necessary. There was hope
that Leicester might come to her apartment as soon as the revel in the
Castle had subsided; but there was also risk she might be disturbed by
some unauthorized intruder. She had lost confidence in the key since
Tressilian had entered so easily, though the door was locked on the
inside; yet all the additional security she could think of was to place
the table across the door, that she might be warned by the noise should
any one attempt to enter. Having taken these necessary precautions, the
unfortunate lady withdrew to her couch, stretched herself down on it,
mused in anxious expectation, and counted more than one hour after
midnight, till exhausted nature proved too strong for love, for grief,
for fear, nay, even for uncertainty, and she slept.