It crackled gaily; it blazed out brilliantly.

The whole room was as brightly illuminated as if a Christmas festival of ancient England had been preparing within its walls! The warm, cheerful light showed the Goth the figure of his assassin, ere the first cry of anguish had died away on his lips, or the first start of irrepressible horror ceased to vibrate through his frame.

The cries of his hapless companion, as the whole scene of vengeance, treachery, and mutilation flashed in one terrible instant before her eyes, seemed not even to reach his ears.

Once he looked down upon his helpless hands, when the sword rolled heavily from them to the floor.
Then his gaze directed itself immovably upon Goisvintha, as she stood at a little distance from him, with her blood-stained knife, silent as himself.
There was no fury--no defiance--not even the passing distortion of physical suffering in his features, as he now looked on her.

Blank, rigid horror--tearless, voiceless, helpless despair, seemed to have petrified the expression of his face into an everlasting form, unyouthful and unhopeful--as if he had been imprisoned from his childhood, and a voice was now taunting him with the pleasures of liberty, from a grating in his dungeon walls.