Such things should be done at night.  Let morning come creeping like a grey ghost over the hills.  It will not find him - pale, sleepless, unsatisfied.  He will have done what was needful.  In the moat the willow leaves are floating; they form no set design, but slowly arrange and disarrange themselves into different patterns as the wind ruffles the sluggish water.  One might read the future in these patterns, or the past.  Little golden fingers glide over black satin in loving caress.  The dead leaves are lying in heaps whither the wind has blown them upon the tombs of the house of Ravenswood.  A single leaf clings to his clay-cold cheek.  He lies on his side upon the ground.  The lace of his doublet is stained with blood.  There is mud on his stockings, sleeves, on the side of his face that lies nearest the ground.  He has not died without a struggle.  The hilt of a dagger protrudes from the wound.  The blue circlets of his eyes are open, his sweet young mouth is firmly shut.  His hat lies yonder where the wind has carried it - a black hat with a wide, upswept brim and a dancing feather.  The wind teases the feather, forward and back, in time to its own mournful music.  Treachery, murder, madness - such things should be done at night.  His clothes are damp with the morning dew, his hair is soaked with it.  The plump white skin of his cheek is clammy with dew.  A white rose withered by the frost, all the life suddenly gone out.  A single yellow leaf. 

          Around and around the tower at night I hear it screaming - around and around until I too must scream! scream! for I can bear it no longer.  In my own screams to drown his reproaches, in the wavering column of sound that rises in the chest and rushes up through the throat into the head whence it rings like the bell in a tower - Aaaah!  Suddenly drops his voice and whispers in my ear even as I scream.  The black feather dancing in the wind.  The rain beats against the tower, louder and louder - how angry it is!  I must open the window.  I am sure I heard him calling me that time.  Oh, the ringing sweetness of that voice!  They have barred the window so that I cannot open it.  Now there is blood on my hands.  I only did what was needful.  I had sworn myself to him - Look, here is the ring with the stone like a golden eye that watches me day and night.  He fell on his knees before me - how angry he was!  He bid me trample on his unloved corpse.  But no, Edgardo, I'll do no such thing,  I will take you in my cold white  arms and hold you to my heart.  Its breath smoked the air.  At first I could only smell it, then I turned and met its eyes - ugly glaring staring eyes - It wanted me.  To take me away on its back, deep into the forest, far away under the dripping trees where the moss is black and white mushrooms shine like dead men's fingers in the dark.  Might have done to me what it would in that hidden place, none to see or hear the huge, lumbering animal the stink the slaver the bellowing bull...  There was a shot.  He stood there with the gun in his hand - The bull lay dead.  He looked at me - so sweetly!  Who would not have loved him who had once seen him look so?  He wore a lace doublet, a hat with a black, dancing feather.  But the next time it came for me I was alone.  He wanted me - he came for me with his ugly eyes glaring and staring, his breath his eyes his stink.  I did what was needful.   They told him I was dead.  They put me in this tower and told him I was in heaven.  But the tower is not heaven.  His virtue was greater than mine.  This I should have known by the whiteness of his brow, by the silver voice, golden stone, blue eyes, black feather.  He thought me virtuous where I was merely young.  How many years have gone by?  I've lost count.  His young flesh is long since grass.  Still he implores me.  Night after night, round and around the tower.