While thus engaged, the light in Gertrude’s room was suddenly extinguished; it is impossible to express how much that trivial incident affected him! It was like an emblem of what was to come; the light had been the only evidence of life that broke upon that hour, and he was now left alone with the shades of night. Was not this like the herald of Gertrude’s own death; the extinction of the only living ray that broke upon the darkness of the world? His anguish, his presentiment of utter desolation, increased. He groaned aloud; he dashed his clenched hand to his breast; large and cold drops of agony stole down his brow. “Father,” he exclaimed with a struggling voice, “let this cup pass from me! Smite my ambition to the root; curse me with poverty, shame, and bodily disease; but leave me this one solace, this one companion of my fate!” At this moment Gertrude’s window opened gently, and he heard accents steal soothingly upon his ear. “Is not that your voice, Albert?” said she, softly. “I heard it just as I lay down to rest, and could not sleep while you were thus exposed to the damp night air. You do not answer; surely it is your voice: when did I mistake it for another’s?” Mastering with a violent effort his emotions, Trevylyan answered, with a sort of convulsive gayety,-- “Why come to these shores, dear Gertrude, unless you are honoured with the chivalry that belongs to them? What wind, what blight, can harm me while within the circle of your presence; and what sleep can bring me dreams so dear as the waking thought of you?” “It is cold,” said Gertrude, shivering; “come in, dear Albert, I beseech you, and I will thank you to-morrow.” Gertrude’s voice was choked by the hectic cough, that went like an arrow to Trevylyan’s heart; and he felt that in her anxiety for him she was now exposing her own frame to the unwholesome night. He spoke no more, but hurried within the house; and when the gray light of morn broke upon his gloomy features, haggard from the want of sleep, it might have seemed, in that dim eye and fast-sinking cheek, as if the lovers were not to be divided--even by death itself. CHAPTER XXVI. IN WHICH THE READER WILL LEARN HOW THE FAIRIES WERE RECEIVED BY THE SOVEREIGNS OF THE MINES.--THE COMPLAINT OF THE LAST OF THE FAUNS.--THE RED HUNTSMAN.--THE STORM.--DEATH. IN the deep valley of Ehrenthal, the metal kings--the Prince of the Silver Palaces, the Gnome Monarch of the dull Lead Mine, the President of the Copper United States--held a court to receive the fairy wanderers from the island of Nonnewerth.