there was no pause, no pity, no peace, no interval of relenting rest, no measurement of time. though days and nights circled as regularly as when time was young, and the evening and morning were the first day, other count of time there was none. hold of it was lost in the raging fever of a nation, as it is in the fever of one patient. now, breaking the unnatural silence of a whole city, the executioner showed the people the head of the king and now, it seemed almost in the same breath, the head of his fair wife which had had eight weary months of imprisoned widowhood and misery, to turn it grey.