He marked the last wave of her veil--it was gone--and a darkness sunk upon his soul, scarce less palpable than that which almost immediately enveloped his external sense; for the last chorister had no sooner crossed the threshold of the door than it shut with a loud sound, and at the same instant the voices of the choir were silent, the lights of the chapel were at once extinguished, and Sir Kenneth remained solitary and in total darkness.

But to Kenneth, solitude, and darkness, and the uncertainty of his mysterious situation were as nothing--he thought not of them--cared not for them--cared for nought in the world save the flitting vision which had just glided past him, and the tokens of her favour which she had bestowed.

To grope on the floor for the buds which she had dropped--to press them to his lips, to his bosom, now alternately, now together--to rivet his lips to the cold stones on which, as near as he could judge, she had so lately stepped--to play all the extravagances which strong affection suggests and vindicates to those who yield themselves up to it, were but the tokens of passionate love common to all ages.

But it was peculiar to the times of chivalry that, in his wildest rapture, the knight imagined of no attempt to follow or to trace the object of such romantic attachment; that he thought of her as of a deity, who, having deigned to show herself for an instant to her devoted worshipper, had again returned to the darkness of her sanctuary--or as an influential planet, which, having darted in some auspicious minute one favourable ray, wrapped itself again in its veil of mist.

The motions of the lady of his love were to him those of a superior being, who was to move without watch or control, rejoice him by her appearance, or depress him by her absence, animate him by her kindness, or drive him to despair by her cruelty--all at her own free will, and without other importunity or remonstrance than that expressed by the most devoted services of the heart and sword of the champion, whose sole object in life was to fulfil her commands, and, by the splendour of his own achievements, to exalt her fame.
Such were the rules of chivalry, and of the love which was its ruling principle.