'Twas a long while before she ceased from her distress, and to me it seemed far longer than it was. As soon as I heard her move I got me back to my room. The dawn was just breaking when, from a corner of my window, I saw her walk out across the lawn, and the dew was white upon the grass like a hoar-frost. With a weary, dragging step, and a head adroop like a broken flower, she walked to the parapet of the terrace, and hung on it for a little, gazing down upon the roofs of her sleeping village. Then she turned and fixed her eyes upon my window. I was hidden in the curtains so that she could not see me. For some minutes she gazed at it, her face very tired and sad. 'Twas her bridal chamber, or rather, would have been but for me, and I wondered much whether she was thinking of the husband or the guest. She turned away again, looked out across the valley paved with a grey floor of mist, and so walked back to the main wing of the Castle. The light broadened out; starlings began to twitter in the trees, and far away a white peak blushed rosy at the kiss of the sun. The one day of my life had come. By this time to-morrow, I thought, the world would have changed its colours for me, one way or another; and tired out with my vigil, I tumbled into bed and slept dreamlessly until Michael Groder roused me. I asked him why he had failed me the night before. "I was unwell," he replied. "True!" said I, with great friendliness. "You got a heavier load upon your stomach than it would stand." The which was as unwise a remark as I could have made; for Groder's ill-will towards me needed no stimulus to provoke it. CHAPTER XIX. IN THE PAVILION. I EXPLAIN. The marriage, with its odd customs of the Ehrengang and Ehrentanz, might at another time have afforded me the entertainment which Father Spaur promised; but, to speak the truth, the whole ceremony wearied me beyond expression. My thoughts were set in a tide towards the evening, and I watched the sun loiter idly down the length of the valley in a burning fever of impatience. 'Twas about seven of the clock when the villagers flocked up to the Castle and began their antic dances in the Hall and in the ball-room which fronted the terrace. They aimed at a display of agility rather than of elegance, leaping into the air and falling crack upon their knees, slapping their thighs and the soles of their feet, with many other barbaric gambols; and all the while they kept up such a noise of shouting, whistling, and singing, as fairly deafened one.