Hans of Iceland, Volume 1 by Victor Hugo

My lord, I braid my hair; I braid it with salt tears because you leave me alone, and because you go hence into the hills. -- _The Count's Lady_ (_Old Romance_).

Ethel, meantime, had already reckoned four long and weary days since she was left to wander alone in the dark garden of Schleswig tower; alone in the oratory, the witness of so many tears, the confidant of so many longings; alone in the long gallery, where once upon a time she had failed to hear the midnight bell. Her aged father sometimes accompanied her, but she was none the less alone, for the true companion of her life was absent.