As the Duke of Wessex was crossing one of the large rooms of the wing which divides the old Fountain Court from the Cloister Green, he suddenly heard himself called by name.
"Luck favours me indeed," said a voice from out the gloom. "His Grace of Wessex an I mistake not."
At this hour of the evening these rooms were usually deserted, and left but dimly illumined by a few wax tapers placed in tall, many-armed candelabra, the flickering light of which failed to penetrate into the distant corners of the vast, panelled chambers. Wessex could only see the dim outline of a man coming towards him.
"At your service, fair sir, whoever you may be," he responded lightly, "but by the Mass! meseems you must claim kinship with the feline species to be able to distinguish my unworthy self in the dark."
"Nay! 'twas my wish which fathered my thoughts. I had hoped to meet Your Grace here, and was on the look out."
"The Marquis de Suarez," rejoined Wessex, as the young Spaniard now came within the circle of light projected by the candelabra. "You wished to speak with me, sir?"
"I would claim this privilege of Your Grace's courtesy."
"Indeed, I am ever at your service," replied the Duke, not a little astonished at the request.
Since his first meeting with Don Miguel at East Molesey Fair he had only exchanged a very few words with the Spaniard, and the latter seemed even to have purposely avoided him during the past few days. To this His Grace had paid no attention. The foreign envoys at present staying in the Palace were exceedingly antipathetic to him, and beyond the social amenities of Court life he had held no intercourse with any of them.
Rivals all of them, they nevertheless joined issue with one another in their hostile attitude towards the man, who was the formidable stumbling-block to all their diplomatic intrigues.
The Duke himself, in spite of his haughty aloofness from party politics, knew full well how great was the enmity which his personality aroused in the minds of all the strangers at Mary's court.
He was certainly much more amused than disturbed by this generally hostile attitude towards himself, and many a time did the various ambassadors have to suffer, with seeming good-nature, the pointed and caustic shafts aimed at them by His Grace's ready wit.
No wonder, therefore, that Wessex looked with some suspicion on this sudden change of front on the part of one of his most avowed antagonists.
"How can I have the honour of serving an envoy of the King of Spain?" he continued lightly.
But Don Miguel appeared in no hurry to speak. His manner seemed to have completely altered. As a rule he was a perfect model of self-possession and easy confidence, with just a reflection of his distinguished chief's, the Cardinal's, own suavity of manner apparent in all his ways. Now he was obviously ill at ease, shy and nervous, and with a marked desire to be frank, yet too bashful to give vent to so boyish an outburst.
There was in his dark eyes, too, a look almost of appealtowards the Duke to meet his sudden access of friendliness half-way. All this Wessex had already noticed with the one quick glance which he cast at the young Spaniard. He motioned him to a chair and himself leant lightly against the edge of the table.
Don Miguel took this to be an encouragement to proceed.
"Firstly, your Grace's pardon if I should unwillingly transgress," he began.
"My pardon?" rejoined the Duke, much amused at the Marquis' obvious embarrassment. "'Tis yours already. But how transgress?"
"By the asking of a question which Your Grace might deem indiscreet."
"Nay, my lord," quoth the Duke gaily, "no question need be indiscreet, though answers often are."
"Your Grace is pleased to laugh . . . but in this case . . . I . . . that is . . . I hardly know how to put it . . . yet I would assure Your Grace . . ."
"By Our Lady, man!" cried Wessex with a slight show of impatience, "assure me no assurances, but tell me what you wish to say."
"Well then! since I have Your Grace's leave. . . . My object is this. . . . Court gossip has it that you are affianced to the Lady Ursula Glynde."
The Duke did not reply. Don Miguel looked up and saw a quaint smile hovering round His Grace's lips. The young Spaniard, though an earnest and even proficient reader of other men's thoughts, did not quite understand the meaning of that smile: it seemed wistful yet triumphant, full of gaiety and yet with a suspicion of that strange and delicious melancholy, which is never quite inseparable from a great happiness.
But as he seemingly was meeting with no rebuff, the Marquis continued more boldly—
"And . . . but Your Grace must really pardon me. . . . I hardly know how to put it so as not to appear impertinent . . . but 'tis also said that you do not wish to claim the lady's hand."
"Marry! . . ." rejoined the Duke with a laugh. Then he paused, as if in the act of recalling his somewhat roving thoughts, and said more coldly—
"You must pardon me, my lord, if I do not quite perceive in what manner this may concern you."
"I pray Your Grace to have patience with me yet a while longer. I will explain my purpose directly. For the moment I will entreat you, an you will, to answer my question. It is a matter of serious moment to me, and you would render me eternally your debtor."
None knew better in these days than did the high-born Spaniards, all the many little tricks of voice and gesture which go to make up the abstruse and difficult art of diplomacy. Don Miguel at this juncture looked so frank, so boyish, and withal so earnest, that the Duke of Wessex—himself the soul of truth and candour—never even suspected that the young man was but playing a part and enacting a scene, which he had rehearsed under the skilful management of His Eminence the Spanish Cardinal.
Wessex, ever ready to see the merry side of life, ever ready for gaiety and brightness, felt completely disarmed, glad enough to lay aside the cold reserve which the foreign envoys themselves had called forth in him. He liked the Marquis under this new semblance of boyish guilelessness, and returned his tone of deferential frankness with one of easy familiarity.
"The question, my lord, is somewhat difficult to answer," he said with mock seriousness, the while a gay laugh was dancing in his eyes. "You see, there are certain difficulties in the way. The Lady Ursula is a Glynde . . . and all the Glyndes have brown eyes. . . . Now at this moment I feel as if I could never love a brown eye again."
"The Lady Ursula is very beautiful," rejoined the Spaniard.
"Possibly—but you surprise me."
"Your Grace has never seen her?"
"Never, since she was out of her cradle."
"I have the advantage of Your Grace, then."
"You know her, my lord? . . ."
"Intimately!" said Don Miguel, with what seemed an irresistible impulse.
Then he checked his enthusiasm with a visible effort, and stammered with a return of his previous nervousness—
"That is . . . I . . ."
"Yes?" queried the Duke.
"That is the purport of my importunity, my lord," said the young man, springing to his feet and speaking once more in tones of noble candour. "I would have asked Your Grace that, since you do not know the Lady Ursula, since you have no wish to claim her hand, if some one else . . ."
"If the Lady Ursula honoured some one else than my unworthy self. . . . Is that your meaning, my lord?" queried Wessex, as Don Miguel had made a slight pause in his impetuous speech.
"If I . . ."
"You, my lord?"
"I would wish to know if I should be offending Your Grace?"
"Offending me?" cried Wessex joyfully. "Nay, my lord, why were you so long in telling me this gladsome news? . . . Offending me? . . . you have succeeded in taking a load from my conscience, my dear Marquis. So you love the Lady Ursula Glynde? . . . Ye heavens! what a number of circumlocutions to arrive at this simple little fact! You love her . . . she is very beautiful . . . and she loves you. Where did you first see her, my lord?"
"At East Molesey Fair. . . . Your Grace intervened . . . you must remember!"
"Most inopportunely, meseems. I must indeed crave your pardon. And since then?"
"The acquaintanceship, perhaps somewhat unpleasantly begun, has ripened into . . . friendship."
"And thence into love! Nay, you have my heartiest congratulations, my lord. The Glyndes are famous for their virtue, and since the Lady Ursula is beautiful, why! your Court will indeed be graced by such a pattern of English womanhood."
"Oh!" said the Spaniard, with a quick gesture of deprecation.
"Nay! you must have no fear, my lord. Since you have honoured me by consulting my feelings in the matter, it shall be my pride and my delight to further your cause, and that of the Lady Ursula . . . if indeed she will deign to express her wishes to me. . . . I hereby give you a gentleman's word of honour that I consider the promise, which she made to her father in her childhood, in no way binding upon her now. . . . As for the future, I swear that I will obtain Her Majesty's consent to your immediate marriage."
"Nay! I pray you, not so fast!" laughed Don Miguel lightly. "Neither the Lady Ursula nor I have need of Her Majesty's consent. . . ."
"But methought——"
"'Twas not I who spoke of marriage, remember!"
"Then you have completely bewildered me, my lord," rejoined Wessex with a sudden frown. "I understood——"
"That I am the proudest of men, certainly," quoth Don Miguel with a sarcastic curl of his sensual lip, "but 'twas Your Grace who spoke of the lady's virtue. I merelywished to know if I should be offending Your Grace if . . ."
He laughed and shrugged his shoulders. The laugh grated unpleasantly on Wessex' ear, and the gesture savoured of impertinence. The Marquis' manner had suddenly undergone a change, which caused the Duke's every nerve to tingle.
"If what?" he queried curtly. "The devil! sir, cannot you say what you do mean?"
"Why should I," replied the Spaniard, "since your Grace has already guessed? You will own that I have acteden galant homme, by thinking of your wishes. You will not surely desire to champion that much-vaunted virtue of the Glyndes."
"Then what you mean, sir, is that . . ."
"I cannot speak more plainly, my lord, for that among gentlemen is quite impossible. But rumours fly about quickly at Court, and I feared that Your Grace might have caught one, ere I had the chance of assuring you that I recognize the priority of your claim. But now you tell me that you have no further interest in the lady, so I am reassured. . . . We foreigners, you know, take passing pleasures more lightly than you serious-minded English . . . and if the lady be unattached . . . and more than willing . . . why should we play the part of Joseph? . . . a ridiculous rôle at best, eh, my lord? . . . and one, I think, which Your Grace would ever disdain to play. . . . As for me, I am quite reassured . . . Au revoir to Your Grace. . . ."
And before Wessex had time to utter another word, Don Miguel, still laughing, went out of the room.
The Duke felt a little bewildered. The conversation had gone through such a sudden transition, that at the time, he had hardly realized whether it touched him deeply or not.
Owing to Ursula's girlish little ruse, he was totally unaware of her identity with the lady who had been the subject of this very distasteful discussion. To him Lady Ursula Glynde was both unknown and uninteresting. His meeting with beautiful, exquisite "Fanny" had driven all thoughts of other women from his mind.
But with all his volatile disposition, where women were concerned, the Duke of Wessex was nevertheless imbued with a strong and romantic feeling of chivalry towards the entire sex, and Don Miguel's disdainful allusions to the lady who might have been Duchess of Wessex had left his finger-tips itching with the desire to throw his glove in the impudent rascal's face.
Harry Plantagenet, who throughout the interview had openly expressed his disapproval of his master's interlocutor, gave an impatient little whine. He longed for the privacy of his own apartments, the warmth of the rugs laid out specially for him.
"Harry, old friend!" said Wessex thoughtfully, "what the devil, think you, that young reprobate meant?"
He took the dog's beautiful head between his hands and looked straight into the honest, faithful eyes of his dear and constant companion.
"Marry!" he continued more lightly, "you may well look doubtful, you wise philosopher, for you know the Glyndes as well as I do. You remember old Lady Annabel, whose very look would stop your tail from wagging, and Charles, stodgy, silent, serious Charles, who never drank, never laughed, had probably never seen a woman's ankle in his life. And then the Lady Ursula . . . a Glynde . . . do you mind me, old Harry? . . . therefore as ugly, as a combination of virtue and Scotch descent can make any woman. . . . Yet, if I caught the rascal's meaning, neither Scotch descent nor ill looks have proved a shield for the lady's virtue! . . . Well, 'tis no business of ours, is it, old Harry? Let us live and letlive. . . . Perhaps Lady Ursula is not ugly . . . perchance that unpleasant-looking Spaniard doth truly love her . . . and who are we, Harry, you and I, that we should prove censorious? Let us to our apartments, friend, and meditate on woman's frailty and on our own . . . especially on our own . . . we are mere male creatures, and women are so adorable! even when they bristle with virtues like a hedgehog . . . but like him too, are cushioned beneath those bristles with a hundred charming, fascinating sins. . . . Come along, friend, and let us meditate why sin . . . sin of a certain type, remember, should be so enchantingly tempting."
Harry Plantagenet was a philosopher. He had seen his master in this kind of mood before. He wagged his tail as if to express his approval of the broad principles thus submitted for his consideration, but at the same time he showed a distinct desire that his master should talk less and come more speedily to bed.
Wessex after a while was ready enough to dismiss the unpleasant subject. Perhaps he had no right to be censorious or to resent the Spaniard's somewhat unusual attitude. In England, undoubtedly, a gentleman would never—except under very special circumstances—allude to any passing liaison he might have with a lady of his own rank. That was a strict code of honour which had existed from time immemorial, even in the days of King Harry's youth, when the virtue of high-born women had been but little thought of.
Abroad, perhaps, it was different. Spaniards, just then, were noted for the light way in which they regarded the favours of the fair sex, and Don Miguel's code of honour had evidently prompted him to consult Wessex' wishes in the matter of his own intrigue. Loyalty to their own sex is perhaps, on the whole, more general in men than is their chivalry towards women, and perhaps the Marquis' feelings would have revolted at the thought of seeing a lady of such light virtue in the position of Duchess of Wessex.
Be that as it may, His Grace had no wish to probe the matter further; with a shrug of the shoulders he dismissed it from his thoughts, whilst registering a vow to chastise the young blackguard if his impertinence showed signs of recurrence.
He was on the point of yielding to his faithful Harry'scanine appeals by allowing him to lead the way towards his own distant lodgings, when his ear suddenly caught the sound of a silk dress rustling somewhere, not far from where he stood.
At the end of the room closest to him, a few steps led up to a gallery, which ran along the wall, finally abutting at a door, which gave access to the Duchess of Lincoln's and other ladies' lodgings. The rustle of a silk skirt seemed to come from there.
Perhaps Wessex would not have taken notice of it, except that his every thought was filled with a strange excitement since the rencontre of the afternoon. At times now he felt as if his very senses ached with the longing to see once more that entrancing, girlish figure, dressed all in white and crowned with the halo of her exquisite golden hair, to hear once more the sound of that fresh young voice, that merry, childlike laugh, through which there vibrated the thrill of a newly awakened passion.
Since he had met her he was conscious of a wonderful change in himself. He did not even analyse his feelings: he knew that he loved her now: that, in a sense, he had always loved her, for his poetic and romantic temperament had ever been in search of that perfect type of womanhood, which she seemed so completely to embody in herself.
He had only spoken to her for about half an hour, then had sat opposite to her in a boat among the reeds, in the cool of the afternoon, with the lazy river gently rocking the light skiff, and the water birds for sole witnesses of his happiness. They had hardly exchanged a word then, for he had enjoyed the delight—dear to every man who loves—of watching the blushes come and go upon her cheek in response to his ardent gaze. What did words matter? the music in their souls supplied all that they wished to say.
And he—who had been deemed so fickle, who had made of love a pastime, taking what joys women would give him with a grateful yet transient smile, His Grace of Wessex, in fact, who had loved so often yet so inconstantly—knew now that the stern little god, who will not for long brook defiance of his laws, had wounded him for life or death at last.
And even now, when he heard the rustle of a kirtle, he paused instinctively, vaguely, madly hoping that chance, and the great wild longing which was in him, had indeed drawn her footsteps hither.
The door above, at the end of the gallery, was tentatively opened. Wessex could see nothing, for those distant corners of the room were in complete darkness, but he heard a voice, low and sweet, humming the little ditty which she, his queen, had sung this afternoon.
"Disdaine me not that am your own,Refuse me not that am so true,Mistrust me not till all be knowen,Forsake me not now for no new."
"Disdaine me not that am your own,Refuse me not that am so true,Mistrust me not till all be knowen,Forsake me not now for no new."
She walked slowly along the gallery, and paused not far from the top of the short flight of oak steps. She seemed to be hesitating a little, as if afraid to venture farther into the large, dimly lighted hall.
The flicker of the tall wax tapers now caught her dainty figure, casting golden lights and deep, ruddy shadows on her fair young face and on the whiteness of her gown. In her arms she held an enormous sheaf of pale pink monthly roses, the spoils of the garden, lavish in its autumnal glory.
Never had Wessex—fastidious, fickle, insouciant Wessex—seen anything more radiant, more exquisite, more poetic than this apparition which came towards him like the realization of all his maddest dreams.
For one moment more he lingered, his ardent, passionatesoul was loath to give up these heaven-born seconds spent in looking at her. Her eyes shone darkly in the gleam of the candle light and had wondrous reflections in them, which looked ruddy and hot; her delicately chiselled features were suffused with a strange glow, which seemed to come from within; and her lips were slightly parted, moist and red like some ripe summer fruit. From her whole person there came an exhalation of youth and womanhood, of purity and soul-stirring passion.
"Come down, sweet singer," said Wessex to her at last.
She gave a startled little cry, leant over the balustrade, and the sheaf of flowers dropped from her arms, falling in a long cascade of leaves and blossoms, rose-coloured and sweet-scented, at his feet.
"Ah, Your Grace frightened me!" she whispered, with just a touch of feminine coquetry. "I . . . I . . . didn't know you were here."
"I swear you did not, sweet saint . . . but now . . . as I am here . . . come down quickly ere I perish with longing for a nearer sight of your dear eyes."
"But my flowers," she said, with a sudden access of timidity, brought forth by the thrilling ardour of his voice. "I had picked them for Her Majesty's oratory."
"Nay! let them all wither save one . . . which I will take from your hand. Come down. . . ."
One of the roses had remained fixed in the stiff fold of her panier. She took it between her fingers and sighed.
"Oh! I dare not," she said sadly. "Your Grace does not know,—cannot guess, what dire disgrace would befall me if I did."
"Perish the thought of disgrace," rejoined Wessex gaily. "Marry! the saints in Paradise must come down from heaven sometimes, else the world would be consumed by its own wickedness. Come down," he added more earnestly, seized with a mad, ungovernable desire toclasp her to his heart, "come down, or I swear that I'll bring you down in my arms."
"No . . . no . . . no!" she protested, alarmed at his vehemence. "I'll come down."
With a quaintly mischievous gesture she flung the rose at him; it hit him in the face, then fell; he had perforce to stoop in order to pick it up. When he once more straightened his tall figure she was standing quite close to him.
There she was, just as he had always thought of her, even as a boy when first he began to dream. She, the perfect woman whom one day he would meet, and on that day would love wholly, passionately, humbly, and proudly, his own and yet his queen; she the most perfect product of Nature, with just that tone of gold in her hair, just those eyes, so inscrutable, so full of colour, so infinite in their variety; not very tall, but graceful and slender, with her dainty head on a level with his shoulder, her fair young forehead on a level with his lips.
Now that she was so near, he was as if turned to stone. The wild longing was still in him to clasp her in his arms, to hold her closely, tenderly to his heart, yet he would not have touched her for a kingdom.
But as he looked at her he knew that she, herself, would come to him in all her purity, her innocence . . . soon . . . to-day perhaps . . . but certainly one day . . . and that she would come with every fibre in her entire being vibrating in responsive passion to him.
She looked up at him shyly, tentatively. His very soul went out to her as he returned her gaze. A great and glorious exultation thrilled every fibre of her being. She knew that she had conquered, that the love which in her girlish heart she had kept for him had borne fruit a thousandfold. Her heart seemed to stop beating at the immensity of her happiness.
But woman-like, she was more self-possessed than he was.
"I must not stay," she said gravely and with only an imperceptible quiver in her voice. "I am in disgrace, you know . . . for that stroll on the river . . . with you . . . this afternoon."
"Why? what happened?" he asked with a smile.
She held up her little hand and counted on her fingers.
"Number one, a frown and a colder shoulder from Her Majesty! Two, a lecture from Her Grace of Lincoln! Twenty minutes! Three, four, and five, pin-pricks from the ladies and a lonely supper in my room to-night."
He loved her in this gayer mood which made her seem so young and childlike.
"Could you not have contrived to let me know?"
"Why? . . . What would you have done?"
"Made it less lonely for you."
"You are doing that now. I thought I should be alone the rest of the evening. Her Grace of Lincoln and the others are at prayers with Her Majesty. I was confined to that room up there. How is it Your Grace happened to be in this hall just when I came out?"
"A moth is always to be found where the light happens to be," he replied gravely.
"But how did you know I should be here?"
"My eyes, since this afternoon, see you constantly where you are not—how could they fail to see you where you are?"
"Then, as Your Grace has seen me . . ." she added with timid nervousness, seeing that he now stood between her and the steps, "will you allow me to go up again?"
"No."
"I entreat!" she pleaded.
"Impossible."
"Her Grace of Lincoln will be looking for me."
"Then stay here with me until she does."
"What to do?" she queried innocently.
"To make me happy."
"Happy?" she laughed merrily. "Ho! ho! ho! How can I, a humble waiting-maid, manage to make His Grace of Wessex happy?"
"By letting me look at you."
With quaint and artless coquetry she picked up the folds of her heavy brocaded paniers, right and left, with two delicate fingers, and executed a dainty pirouette in front of him.
"There!" she said merrily, "'tis done. . . . And now?"
"By letting me whisper to you . . ." he murmured.
She drew back quickly, and said with mock severity—
"That which I must not hear."
"Why not?"
"Because Your Grace is not free," she rejoined archly. "Not free to whisper anything in any woman's ear, save in that of Lady Ursula Glynde."
"Then you guessed what I would have whispered to you?"
"Perhaps."
"What was it?"
She veiled the glory of her eyes with their fringe of dark lashes.
"That you loved me . . ." she murmured, "for the moment. . . ."
How irresistible she was, with just that soupçon of coquetry to whet the desire of this fastidious man of the world, and with it all so free from artifice, so young and fresh and pure:—a madonna, yet made to tempt mankind.
"Nay! if you would let me, sweet saint, I would whisper in your tiny ear that I worship you!" he saidin all sincerity and truth, and with the ring of an ardent passion in every tone of his voice.
"Worship me? . . ." she queried in mock astonishment, "and Your Grace does not even know who I am."
"Faith! but I do. You are the most beautiful woman on this earth."
"Oh! . . . but my name! . . ."
"Nay! as to that I care not . . . You shall tell it me anon, if you like. . . . For the moment I love to think of you as I first beheld you in the garden this afternoon—a fairy or sprite . . . I know not which . . . an angel mayhap . . . in your robes of white, surrounded with flowers and dark bosquets of hazelnut and of yew, with golden tints of ruddy autumn around you, less glorious than your hair. Let me worship blindly . . . fettered . . . your slave."
She sighed, a quaint little sigh, which had a tinge of melancholy in it.
"For how long?" she murmured.
"For my whole life," he replied earnestly. "Will you not try me?"
"How?"
"You love me, sweet saint?"
"I . . ." she began shyly.
"Let me look into your eyes. . . . I will find my answer."
Her arms dropped by her side, she looked up and met his eyes, ardent, burning with passion, fixed longingly upon her. He came close to her, quite close, his presence thrilled her; she closed her eyes in order to shut out from her innermost soul everything from the outside world, save the exquisite feeling of her newly awakened love.
"Now, see how perverse I am," he whispered passionately. "I do not want you to tell me anything just now . . . open your eyes, dear saint . . . for I but want tostand like this . . . and read in their blue depths . . . enjoying every fraction of a second of this heavenly moment. . . ."
She tried to speak, but instinctively he stopped her.
"No . . . no . . . do not speak. . . . And yet . . . 'tis from your sweet lips I'd have my final answer."
He took her in his arms. She lay against him, unresisting, her sweet face turned up to his, soul meeting soul at last in the ecstasy of a first kiss. He held her to his heart. It seemed as if he could never let her go from him again. Everything was forgotten, the world had ceased to be. For him there was but one woman on this earth, and she was his own.
How long they stood thus, heart to heart, they themselves could never have said. The sound of many voices in the near distance roused them from their dream. Ursula started in alarm.
"Holy Virgin!" she exclaimed under her breath, "if it should be the Queen!"
But Wessex held her tightly, and she struggled in vain.
"Nay! then let the whole Court see that I hold my future wife in my arms," he said proudly.
But with an agitated little cry she contrived to escape him. He seemed much amused at her nervousness; what had she to fear? was she not his own, to protect even from the semblance of ill? But Ursula, now fully awakened to ordinary, everyday surroundings, was fearful lest her own innocent little deception should be too crudely, too suddenly unmasked.
She had so earnestly looked forward to the moment when she would say to him that she in sooth was none other than Lady Ursula Glynde, the woman whom every conventionality had decreed that he should marry, and whom—because of these conventionalities—he had secretly but certainly disliked.
Her woman's heart had already given her a clear insight into the character and the foibles of the man she loved. His passion for her now, sincere and great though it was, was partly dependent on that atmosphere of romancewhich his poetical temperament craved for, and which had surrounded the half-mysterious personality of exquisite, irresistible "Fanny."
Instinctively she dreaded the rough hand of commonplace, that ugly, coarse destroyer of poetic idylls. A few hastily uttered words might shatter in an hour the mystic shrine wherein Wessex had enthroned her. She had meant to tell him soon, to-morrow perhaps, perhaps only after a few days, but she wished to find her own time for this, when he knew her inner soul better, and the delicate cobwebs of this great love-at-first-sight had fallen away from his eyes.
She could not altogether have explained to herself why a sudden disclosure of her identity at this moment would have been peculiarly unpleasant to her. It was a weak, childish feeling no doubt. But such as it was, it was real, and strong, and genuine.
Barely a minute had elapsed whilst these quick thoughts and fears went wildly coursing through her mind. There was no time to tell him everything now. The voices came from the next room, within the next few seconds probably the great door would be open to admit a group of people: the Duchess of Lincoln and the ladies mayhap, or the Queen on her way to chapel. And His Grace of Wessex looked terribly determined.
"No! no! no!—not just this moment, sweet Grace," she entreated, "by your love! notjustthis moment. . . . The Queen would be so angry . . . oh! notjustnow!"
She looked so genuinely disturbed, and so tenderly appealing, that he could not help but obey.
"But you cannot send me away like this," he urged. "Another word, sweet saint. . . . Faith! I could not live without another kiss. . . ."
"No, no, no, I entreat Your Grace . . . not to-night," she protested feebly.
He thought, however, that he detected a sign of yielding in her voice, although she was already beginning to mount the steps ready for flight.
"Just one tiny word," he whispered hurriedly: "when the Queen has passed through, linger up there for one brief minute only. I'll wait in there!"
And he pointed to a small door close behind him, which led to an inner closet at right angles with the gallery. Before she had time to protest—nay! perhaps she had no wish to refuse—he had disappeared behind its heavy panels, quickly calling to his dog to follow him. But in that one moment's hesitation, those few brief and delicious words hastily exchanged, she had lost her opportunity for escape.
The next instant the door at the further end of the room was thrown open, and the Queen entered followed by some of her ladies. She was accompanied by the Duchess of Lincoln, and His Eminence the Cardinal de Moreno was on her left.
As chance or ill-luck would have it, the first sight which greeted Her Majesty's eyes was the figure of Lady Ursula, midway up the steps which led to the gallery, some mysterious imp of mischief having contrived that the light from the wax tapers should unaccountably and very vividly fall upon the white-clad form of the young girl. An exclamation of stern reproval from Her Grace of Lincoln brought Ursula to a standstill.
Flight now was no longer possible; she could but trust in her guardian angel, or in any of those protective genii who have in their keeping the special care of lovers in distress, and who happened to be hovering nigh.
It was not seemly to be half-way up a flight of stairs when Her Majesty was standing on the floor below. Ursula, with her cheeks aflame with vexation, slowly descended, whilst encountering as boldly as she could theartillery fire of half a dozen pairs of eyes fixed steadily upon her.
Mary Tudor looked coldly severe, Her Grace of Lincoln horror-struck, His Eminence ironical, and the ladies vastly amused.
"Ah, child!" said Her Majesty, in her iciest tone of voice, "all alone, and in this part of the Palace?"
She looked the dainty young figure disdainfully up and down, then her eye caught the sheaf of roses lying in a fragrant tangle close to the foot of the stairs. There was a quick flash of anger in her face, then a frown. Ursula wondered how much she guessed or what she suspected.
But the Queen, after that one quick wave of passionate wrath, made an obvious effort to control herself. She turned composedly to the Duchess of Lincoln.
"Your Grace is aware," she said drily, "that I deem it most indecorous for my maids-of-honour to wander about the Palace alone."
The wrinkled old face of the kindly Duchess expressed the most heartfelt sorrow.
"I crave Your Majesty's humble pardon . . ." she stammered in an agony of misery at this public reproof. "I . . ."
"Nay, Duchess, I know the difficulty of your task," rejoined Mary Tudor bitingly, "the other ladies are docile, and their behaviour is maidenly and chaste. 'Tis not always so with the Lady Ursula Glynde."
Mary's voice had been so trenchant and hard that it seemed to Ursula's sensitive ears as if its metallic tones must have penetrated to every corner of the Palace. She gave a quick, terrified look towards the door, longing with all her might for the gift to see through its massive panels—to know what went on within that inner closet, where Wessex was waiting and must have heard.
One pair of eyes, however, had caught that swiftglance, and noted the sudden obvious fright which accompanied it. His Eminence had not taken his piercing eyes from off the young girl's face; he had seen every movement of the delicate nostril, every quiver of the eyelid.
What Mary Tudor only half suspected, what the good old Duchess could not even conjecture, that His Eminence had already more than guessed.
The delicate, rosy blush which suffused the young girl's cheeks, that indescribable something which emanated from her entire personality, the half-withered roses, all told their tale to this experienced diplomatist, accustomed to read his fellow-creatures' thoughts. Then that quick, apprehensive look towards the door had confirmed his every surmise.
"She has seen His Grace. . . . He is closeted in there!" were his immediate mental deductions. And whilst Ursula met Her Majesty's cold glances with as much boldness as she could command, and Her Grace of Lincoln lost herself in a maze of abject apologies, His Eminence, seemingly unconcerned, edged up to the low door, keeping the lock and handle thereof well in view.
"I crave Your Majesty's indulgence for the child," the Duchess of Lincoln was muttering. "She meant no harm, I'll take my oath on that, and she will, I know, return at once to her room, there to grieve over Your Majesty's disapproval of her. She——"
"Nay, Duchess," interrupted the Queen sternly, "repentance is far from Lady Ursula's thoughts, and her behaviour is not the thoughtlessness of a moment."
"Your Majesty . . ." protested the Duchess, whilst Ursula threw her head back in token of proud denial.
"The rumour has already reached us," continued Mary, "of a maid-of-honour's strange wanderings at night and in disguise outside the purlieus of the Palace, and thatthe maiden who so far forgot her rank and her modesty was none other than the Lady Ursula Glynde."
Again that quick apprehensive glance directed towards the closet door at mention of her name, a glance unseen by any one present save by His Eminence's watchful eyes. To him it had revealed all that he wished to know, whilst the Queen, blinded by her own jealousy, saw nothing but a rival whom she desired to humiliate.
"Wessex is behind that door . . ." mused His Eminence. "She starts every time her name is uttered . . . ergo, he made love to her without knowing who she is."
It was natural and simple. The very logical sequence of a series of co-ordinated thoughts, together with a shrewd knowledge of human nature.
How this little incident would affect his own immediate plans His Eminence had not yet conjectured. That it would prove of vast importance, he was never for a moment in doubt. Therefore, at a moment when every one's eyes were fixed upon the Queen or Ursula, he quietly turned the key in the lock of that closet door, and slipped the key in his own pocket.
After that he rejoined the group of ladies, feeling that he could wait in peace until the close of the dramatic little episode.
"The rumour, if rumour there was," Ursula had retorted defiantly, "is a false one, Your Majesty."
"Indeed, child," said the Queen coldly, "did you not, then, some days ago leave the Palace with no other companion save weak-willed Margaret Cobham?"
"Verily, I . . ."
"In order to visit, in disguise, or masked, or cloaked—we know not—some public entertainment, a country fair, methinks?"
"Of a truth, but . . ."
"You do not deny that, meseems."
"I do not deny it, Your Majesty. I meant no harm."
"No harm! hark at the girl! Was there no harm then in your meeting certain gentlemen of our Court, under circumstances not altogether creditable to the fair fame of our English maidens?"
"Has the Marquis de Suarez dared. . . ."
"Nay! We did not name the Marquis, girl. Of a truth a gentleman will dare all, once a maid forgets her own dignity. But enough of this. I spoke a word of warning in your own interests. The Marquis—saving His Eminence's presence—has all the faults of his race. We warn you to cease this intercourse, which doth no credit to your modesty."
"Your Majesty . . ." retorted Ursula, proud and rebellious at this slight put upon her, and forgetting for the moment even the invisible presence of the man she loved.
But Mary Tudor, though at times capable of noble and just impulses, was far too blinded by her own passion to give up the joy of this victory over the girl who had become her rival. At any rate, Fate had done one great thing for her: she was the Queen, ruling as every Tudor had ruled, by divine right, absolutely, unquestionably.
She would not let the girl speak, she would see her go, humiliated, with head bent, forcibly swallowing her tears of shame. Mary only regretted this: that Wessex could not be witness of this scene.
She threw back her head, drew herself up to her full height, and pointed peremptorily up towards the gallery.
"Silence, wench!" she commanded. "Go!"
And Ursula could not help but obey.
Slowly she mounted the stairs, her heart burning with defiance. To have angered Mary Tudor further by renewed rebellion would have been worse than madness; itwould inevitably have brought more ignominy and worse perchance upon herself.
But the tears, which she tried in vain to suppress, were not caused by the Queen's harsh words, but by the terrible doubts which assailed her when she thought of Wessex.
Had he heard?
What would he think?
Would he understand the cause of her innocent deception, or would he believe—as indeed he must if he heard them—the evil insinuations so basely put forward by the Queen.
As she found her way along the gallery she heard Mary's voice once more.
"Duchess, I pray you see that in future more strict surveillance is kept over the young maids under your charge. Lady Ursula's conduct has put me verily to shame before the ambassadors of foreign Courts."
With a sob of impotent revolt Ursula disappeared within the upper room.
The Cardinal watched her until the door closed upon her and he was quite sure that she was well out of hearing. Then he approached the Queen and said in his most suave manner—
"Nay! Your Majesty, methinks, takes this trifling matter too muchau sérieux. You deigned to mention the Marquis de Suarez just now. Believe me, he is far too proud of the favours bestowed upon him by Lady Ursula to look on England with any reproach."
The Duchess of Lincoln would have spoken, if she dared. Her loyal old soul rebelled against this insinuation, which she knew to be utterly false. But to tax His Eminence with the uttering of unfounded gossip and in the presence of the Queen of England—that task was quite beyond the worthy Duchess's powers.
But in her motherly heart she registered the resolutionto take Ursula's part as hotly as she dared whenever Her Majesty would give her leave to speak, and in any case she would not allow the Cardinal's imputation to rest long upon the innocent young girl.
The Queen, on the other hand, had visibly brightened up when His Eminence himself mentioned the name of the young Spaniard in such close connection with that of Ursula. She seemed to drink in with delight the poisoned cup of thinly veiled slander which His Eminence held so temptingly before her.
She wanted to think of Ursula as base and wanton and had, until now, never quite dared to believe the many strange rumours which certainly had reached her ears.
With all her faults, Mary was a just woman and above all a proud one; she would never have allowed her rival to suffer long and seriously under a false calumny. The name of the Marquis de Suarez, when she uttered it, had been but a shaft hurled at random.
But since His Eminence so palpably hinted a confirmation of her hopes, she was more than ready to give his insinuations the fullest credence. So pleased was she that she gave him quite a pleasant smile, the first he had had from her since the afternoon.
"As Your Eminence justly remarks," she said graciously, "the matter is perhaps not of grave moment. But our interest in the young maidens who form our Court is a genuine one nevertheless. I pray you let it pass—Duchess, we'll speak of it all on the morrow. My lord Cardinal, we will wish you good night."
She was about to finally pass him and to leave the room when her curiosity got the better of her usual dignified reserve.
"Is it the last night Your Eminence will spend at our Court?" she asked pointedly.
"I think not, Your Majesty," replied the Cardinalblandly. "'Tis many days yet which I shall hope to spend in Your Majesty's company."
"Yet the skein is still entangled, my lord."
"'Twill be unravelled, Your Majesty."
"When?"
"Quien sabe?" he replied. "Perhaps to-night."
"To-night?"
She had allowed herself to be led away by the eagerness of her desire to know what was happening. Shrewd enough where her own wishes and plans were concerned, she could not help but notice the air of contentment, even of triumph, which the Cardinal had worn throughout the evening. He certainly did not look like a man about to be sent back discomfited, to an irate master, there to explain that he had failed in the task allotted to him.
Mary's curiosity was very much on the alert, but His Eminence's monosyllabic answers were not intended to satisfy her, and perforce she had to desist from further questioning him. Obviously he did not mean to tell her anything just yet. She bade him good night with more graciousness than he could have anticipated, and his bow to her was full of the most profound respect.
A moment later she had passed out of the room, followed by Her Grace of Lincoln and her maids-of-honour.
The colloquy between Mary Tudor and Ursula Glynde had probably not lasted more than a few minutes.
To Wessex it seemed as if years had elapsed since he had closed the door of the small inner room behind him, shutting out from his sight the beautiful vision which had filled his soul with gladness.
Years! during which he had learnt chapter by chapter, the history of woman's frailty and deceit. Now, he suddenly felt old, all the buoyancy had gone out of his life, and he was left worn and weary, with a millstone of shattered illusions hung around his neck.
It had come about so strangely.
She was not exquisite "Fanny," mysterious, elusive, after all. She was Lady Ursula Glynde.
Well! what mattered that?
The name first pronounced by the Queen's trenchant voice had grated harshly on his ear. Why?
At first he could not remember.
Fanny or Ursula? Why not? The woman whom conventionality had in some sense ordained that he should marry. Why not?
Surely 'twas for him to thank conventionality for this kind decree.
But the Lady Ursula Glynde!
When did he last hear that name? Surely it was on that Spaniard's lips half an hour ago, accompanied by a thinly veiled, coarse jest and an impudent laugh.
But his "Fanny!"—that white-clad, poetic embodiment of his most exalted dreams! Those guileless blue eyes—or were they black?—that childlike little head so fitly crowned with gold!
No! no!thatwas his "Fanny," not the other woman, whom the Queen was even now upbraiding for immodest conduct.
Now she was speaking . . . stammering . . . denying nothing. . . . Where was that Ursula Glynde? . . . the other woman . . . she who was false and wanton. . . . "Fanny" was pure and sweet and girlish. . . . Ursula alone was to blame. Where was she?
"Has the Marquis de Suarez dared . . ."
It was her voice. Why did she name that man?
She knew him then? . . . had met him at East Molesey Fair? . . . she did not deny it . . . she only asked if he had dared . . . whilst the Spaniard had said, with a flippant shrug of the shoulders, that the acquaintanceship had ripened into . . . friendship.
Wessex' whole soul rebelled at this suggestion. He had but one desire, to see her, to ask her—she would tell him the truth, and he would believe whatever she told him with those dear red lips of hers, which he had kissed.
He felt quite calm, still, firm in his faith, and sustained by his great love. He went to the door and found it locked.
A trifling matter surely, but why was it locked?
She had been upset, confused, ere the Queen had come. She would not allow him the great joy of proclaiming to all who were there to hear, that he had wooed and won her. Once more there came that torturing question: Why?
So averse was she to his appearing before the Queen, that she had locked the door for fear that the exuberant happiness which was in him, should cause him to precipitate a climax which she obviously dreaded.
Why? Why? Why?
But he would respect her wishes, and though his very sinews ached with the longing to break down that door, to see her then and there, not to endure for another second this maddening agony which made his temples throb and his brain reel, he made no attempt to touch the bolts again.
Just then there came the Queen's final words to her:
"The Marquis de Suarez has all the faults of his race. We warn you to cease this intercourse which doth no credit to your modesty."
And she—his love, his cherished dream—had said nothing in reply. Wessex strained his every sense to hear, but there came nothing save—
"Your Majesty . . ."
And then the peremptory—
"Silence, wench!" from irate Mary Tudor.
And then nothing more.
She had gone evidently, bearing her humiliation, leaving him in doubt and fear, to endure a torture of the soul which well-nigh unmanned him.
She must have known that he had heard, and yet she said nothing.
To the Duke of Wessex, the most favoured man in England, the grand seigneur with one foot on the throne, the idea of suffering a false accusation in silence was a thing absolutely beyond comprehension—weakness which must have its origin in guilt.
Human nature is so constituted that man is bound to measure his fellow-creatures by his own standard; else why doth charity think no evil? The goodness and purity which comes from the soul is always mirrored in the soul of others. Evil sees evil everywhere. Pride does not understand humility.
Thus in Wessex' heart!
Had his sovereign liege—that sovereign being a man—dared to put forth a base insinuation against him, he wouldhave forgotten the kingship and struck the man, who impeached his honour, fearlessly in the face. Nothing but conscious guilt would have stayed his avenging hand, or silenced the indignant words on his lips.
Of course he could not see what was actually passing: he could but surmise, and a fevered, tortured brain is an uncertain counsellor.
He could not understand Ursula's attitude. The girlish weakness, the submission to the highest authority in the land born of centuries of tradition, the maidenly bashfulness at the monstrosity of the accusation, were so many little feminine traits which at this moment appeared to him as so many admissions of guilt.
He would have loved them at other times: loved them inherespecially, because they were so characteristic of her simple nature, bred in the country, half woman and wholly child. Just now they were repellent to his pride, incomprehensible to his manhood, and for the first time his faith began to waver.
Pity him, my masters! for he suffered intensely.
Pity him, mistress, for he loved her with his whole soul.
Nay! do not sneer. Love-at-first-sight is a great and wonderful thing, and, more than that, it is real—genuinely, absolutely, completely real. But it is not immutable. It is the basis, the solid foundation of what will become the lasting passion. In itself it has one great weakness—the absence of knowledge.
Wessex loved with his soul, but not yet with his reason. How could he? Reason is always the last to fall into line with the other slaves of passion. At present he worshipped in her that which he had conceived her to be, and the very sublimity of this whole-hearted love was a bar to the existence of perfect trust and faith.
There had been a long silence whilst Ursula mounted the stairs and finally disappeared, but the rustle of her silkskirt did not penetrate through the solid panels of the closet door. Wessex did not know whether she had gone, or had been ordered to wait until Her Majesty had quitted the room. He wondered now how soon he would meet her, how she would look when she finally released him from this torture-chamber. He knew that he would not upbraid her, and feared but one awful eventuality, his own weakness if she were guilty.
Love such as his oft makes cowards of men.
To the Cardinal's poisoned shaft he paid but little heed. The weary soul had come to the end of its tether. It could not suffer more.
Beyond that lay madness or crime.
Silence became oppressive.
Then it seemed as if the key was being gently turned in the lock.
His Eminence had been left all alone in the room after the passage of Her Majesty to her own apartments.
"And now, what is the next move in this game of chess?" he mused, as he took the key of the closet door from his pocket and thoughtfully contemplated this tiny engine of his far-reaching and elaborate schemes.
"For the moment my guess was a shrewd one. His Grace of Wessex is in there, and had I not locked that door he would have precipitated a climax, which had sent Queen Mary into a fever of jealous rage, and the Spanish ambassador and myself back to Spain to-morrow."
He listened intently for a second or so; no sound came from the inner room. Then he glanced up towards the gallery.
There was, of course, no sign of Lady Ursula. Even if she intended anon to rejoin His Grace, she would certainly wait a little while ere she once more ventured to sally forth.
The Cardinal very softly put the key back into the lock, and waited.
Very soon the door was vigorously shaken. His Eminence retired to the further end of the room and called loudly—
"Who goes there?"
"By Our Lady!" came in strong accents from the other side of the locked door, "whoever you may be, anyou don't open this door, it shall fall in splinters atop of you."
Time to once more recross the room, and turn a small key, and a second later the Cardinal stood face to face with the Duke of Wessex.
"His Grace of Wessex!" he murmured, with an expression of boundless astonishment.
"Himself in person, my lord," rejoined Wessex, trying with all his might to appear unconcerned before this man, whom he knew to be his deadliest enemy. "Marry!" he added, with well-acted gaiety, "the next moment, an Your Eminence had not released me, I might have lost my temper."
"A precious trifle Your Grace would no doubt have quickly found again," said His Eminence with marked suavity. "Ah! I well recollect in my young days being locked in . . . just like Your Grace . . . by a lady who was no less fair."
Had he entertained the slightest doubt as to whether the little dramatic episode just enacted had borne its bitter fruit, he would have seen it summarily dispelled with the first glance which he had cast at Wessex.
The Duke's grave face was deadly pale, and the violent effort which he made to contain himself was apparent in the heavily swollen veins of his temples and the almost imperceptible tremor of his hands. But his voice was quite steady as he said lightly—
"Nay! why should Your Eminence speak of a lady in this case?"
"What have I said?" quoth the Cardinal, throwing up his be-ringed hands in mock alarm. "Nay! Your Grace need have no fear. Discretion is an integral portion of my calling. I was merely indulging in reminiscences. My purple robes do not, as you know, conceal a priest. Though a prince of the Church, I am anecclesiastic only in name, and therefore may remember, without a blush, that I was twenty once and very hot-tempered. The lady in my case put me under lock and key whilst she went to another gallant."
"Again you speak of a lady, my lord," said the Duke, with the same light indifference. "May I ask——"
"Nay, nay! I pray you ask me nothing . . . I saw nothing, believe me . . ."
He paused a moment. Wessex had turned to his dog, who, yawning and stretching, after the manner of his kind, and not the least upset by his recent incarceration, had just appeared in the doorway of the inner room.
"I saw nothing," continued the Cardinal, with a voice full of gentle, good-natured indulgence, "save a charming lady standing here alone, close to that door, when I entered with Her Majesty. What Queen Mary guessed or feared, alas! I cannot tell. The charming lady had just turned the key in the lock . . . and this set me thinking of my own youth and follies. . . . But Your Grace must pardon an old man who has but one affection left in life. Don Miguel is as a son to me——"
"I pray you, my lord," here interrupted Wessex haughtily, "what has the Marquis de Suarez' name to do with me?"
"Only this, my son," rejoined the Cardinal with truly paternal benevolence, "Don Miguel is a stranger in England . . . I had almost hoped that hospitality would prevent Your Grace from flying your hawk after his birds. . . .
"Don Miguel would be hard hit," he added quickly, seeing that Wessex, at the end of his patience, was about to make an angry retort, "for we all know that where His Grace of Wessex desires to conquer, other vows and other lovers are very soon forgotten . . . But the Marquis is young . . . I would like to plead his cause. . . ."
His keen eyes had never for a moment strayed from the proud face of the Duke. He was shrewd enough to know that in speaking thus, he was reaching the outermost limits of His Grace's forbearance. His robes and his age rendered him to a certain extent immune from an actual quarrel with a man of Wessex' physique, nor did fear for his own personal safety ever enter into the far-seeing calculations of this astute diplomatist. Whatever his weaknesses might be, cowardice was not one of them, and he pursued his own aims boldly and relentlessly.
But he had had to endure a great deal through the personality and the presence of the Duke of Wessex: the humiliation put upon him this very afternoon by Mary Tudor still rankled deeply in his mind, and the vein of cruelty, almost inseparable from his nationality, rendered the present situation peculiarly pleasing to this dissector of human hearts.
Until this moment he had perhaps not quite realized that His Grace of Wessex had been hard hit. Having wilfully put away from his own life every tender sentiment, he did not understand the quick rise of a great and whole-souled passion. The Duke had been ever noted for his gallantry, his chivalry, and his numerous and light amourettes, and the Cardinal never imagined that in the daring game which he had planned, and which with the help of the wench Mirrab he was about to play, he would have to reckon with something more serious than a passing flirtation.
To his feline disposition, his callous estimate of human nature, his real hatred for this political rival, there was now a delicious satisfaction in dealing a really mortal wound to the man for whose sake he had oft been humiliated.
He felt a thrill of real and cruel delight in seeing this haughty Englishman half broken under the strain of thismental torture, which his slanderous words helped to aggravate. With half-closed eyes His Eminence was watching the quiver of the proud lip, ever ready with laughter and jest, the tremor of the slender hands, that peculiar stiffening of the whole figure which denotes a fierce struggle 'twixt raging passion and iron self-control. Was it not a joy to watch this gaping wound, into which he himself was pouring a deadly poison with a steady and unerring hand?
The game had become doubly interesting now, and so much more important. The Duke, obviously deeply in love with Lady Ursula, would certainly never turn to another woman again. If the intrigue contrived by His Eminence and the Marquis de Suarez succeeded in accordance with their expectations, then not only would His Grace be parted from the lady in accordance with Queen Mary's ultimatum, but he would probably bury his disillusionment and sorrow on some remote estate of his, far from Court and political strife.
Chance had indeed been kind to the envoys of the King of Spain.
Chance, and the natural sequence of events, skilfully guided by the Cardinal's gentle hands.
But His Eminence was clever enough to know exactly how far he might dare venture. For the moment he certainly had said enough. The Duke seemed partly dazed and had altogether forgotten his presence.
Without a sound the Cardinal glided out of the room.
The closing of the door roused Wessex from the torpor into which he had fallen. The hall looked sombre and dreary, the wax tapers flickered feebly in their sockets, whilst strange shadows seemed to jeer at him from the dark corners around. He would not look up at the gallery, the steps whereon she stood, for it seemed to him as if some mocking witch wearing her face and her goldenhair would look down at him from there, and laugh and sneer, until she finally faded from his sight in the arms of the Marquis de Suarez.
"Other vows and other lovers," he mused, whilst trying to shut away from his eyes the hellish visions which tortured him. "So my beautiful Fanny is not mine at all . . . but the Spaniard's . . . or another's . . . what matter whose? Not true and proud, but a frisky wench, ready for intrigue, of whom these foreigners speak with a coarse laugh and a shrug of the shoulders."
"Harry Plantagenet, my friend," he added, as the dog, seeming to feel the presence of sorrow, gave his master's hand a gentle lick, "His Grace of Wessex has been made a fool of by a woman. . . . Ah, fortune! fickle fortune! one or two turns of your relentless wheel and a host of illusions . . . the last I fear me . . . have been scattered to the winds. . . . Shall we go, old Harry? Meseems you are the only honest person in this poison-infected Court. We'll not stay in it, friend, I promise you. . . . I am thirsting for the pure air of our Devon moors. . . . Come, now . . . we must to bed . . . and sleep. . . . Not dream, old Harry! . . . whatever else we do . . . for God's sake, let us not dream. . . ."