For ten days after Gerault’s departure, Lenore led a disastrous mental existence, which she expressed neither by words nor by deeds. In that time no one in the Castle knew how she was rent and torn with anguish, with yearning that had never been satisfied, and with useless regret for a bygone happiness that had not been happy. The silent progress of her grief led her into dark valleys of despair; yet none dreamed in what depths she wandered. She, the woman chaste and pure, dared not try to comprehend all that went on within her. She dared not picture to herself what it was she really longed for so bitterly. The cataclysms that rent her mind in twain were unholy things, and, had she been normal, she might have refused to acknowledge them. The changes in her life had come upon her with such overwhelming swiftness that she had hitherto had no time for analysis; and now that she found herself with a long leisure in which to think, the chaos of her mind seemed hopeless; she despaired of coming again into understanding with herself. During all these days Madame Eleanore watched her closely, but to little purpose. The calm outward demeanor of the young woman baffled every suspicion of her inward state. Day after day Lenore sat at work in the whirring, noisy spinning-room, toiling upon her tapestry with a diligence and a persistent silence that defied encroachment. Hour after hour her eyes would rest upon the dim, blue sea; for that sea was the only thing that seemed to possess the power of stilling her inward rebellion. Forgetting how the winds could sometimes drive its sparkling surface into a furious stretch of tumbling waters, she dreamed of making her own spirit as placid and as quiet as the ocean. The thought was inarticulate; but it grew, even in the midst of her inward tumult, till in the end it brought her something of the quiet she so sorely needed. By day and by night, through every hour, in every place, the figure of her husband was always before her. How unspeakably she wanted him, she herself could not have put into words. She knew well that he had promised to come back—“soon.” But when every hour is replete with hidden anguish, can a day be short? Can ten days be less than an eternity? a possible month of delay less than unutterable? One little oasis Lenore found for herself in this waste of time. Every day she had been accustomed to pray upon her rosary, which was composed of sixty-two white beads. Now, when she had said her morning prayer, she tied a little red string above the first bead. On the second morning it was moved up over the second bead; and so the sacred chain became a still more sacred calendar. How many times did she halt in her prayers to find the thirtieth bead! and how her heart sank when she saw it still so very far from the little line of red!