CHAPTER II.
The golden sceptre which thou didst reject, Is now an angry rod to bruise and break Thy disobedience.
Gilbert de Hers, as the good priest withdrew into his own apartment, resumed his seat upon the bench, and soon became absorbed in meditation.
His varying face betrayed the character of each thought as it filed before his mind in rapid review.

For more than an hour he remained in that statue-like state, when we, in a measure, assume a triple being, as the past and the present unite to form a future.
But as all reveries, like life itself, must end, Gilbert at length seemed to be aware of the reality of the unpretending bed in the corner.
Having repeated the prayers which his piety suggested, he extinguished the almost exhausted taper, and threw himself upon the bed.

He could not sleep, however; for, great as the fatigue of the day had been, the excitement was greater.

His mind was perpetually recurring to the events at the spring, from which they wandered to his father's lonely and anxious chamber: now he remembered the earnest appeal of Father Omehr, and now pondered the injuries he had received from the house of Stramen.
Through a narrow opening in the wall he could see the noble church sleeping in the moonlight.

Its walls of variegated marble had been built principally at the expense of the Barons of Stramen, for in those days it was not unfrequent for private families to erect magnificent churches from their own resources; and as his eye rested upon the misty window, perhaps he felt that though utterly opposed in all else, there was one thing in common between his own haughty race and the founders of that church--religion.
The night wore on, and was far advanced; but Gilbert still kept piling thought upon thought, unable and even scarcely desiring to exchange them for the deep repose or more confused images of slumber.