When Ursula finally succeeded in escaping from her room, where she had been forcibly confined—almost a prisoner—in the charge of two waiting-women, she returned to the hall, vaguely hoping that Wessex would still be there. She found no one. The closet door was open; taking one of the wax tapers in her hand she peeped into the inner room and saw that it was empty.
On the fur rug, on the floor, was still the impress of Harry Plantagenet's body, as he had curled himself up patiently to wait and sleep.
A sudden draught extinguished the taper and left the small room in total darkness; to her overwrought nerves it seemed cold and lonely, like a newly opened grave. Wessex had gone because he had heard that she had deceived him. The slanders uttered against her had found credence in his heart. Thus she mused, guessing at the truth, perhaps not even realizing how much he had suffered.
She would not go back to her room just yet. She knew that she could not rest. Though the room was empty there seemed something of him still in it, even in its cold and deserted aspect.
She lingered here, sitting in the chair where he had sat and heard. She could not cry, she would not give way, for she wished to think. Therefore she lingered.
Thus fate worked its will in this strange history of that night.
Wessex did not know that she had returned. After the Cardinal had left him he waited awhile, but he never guessed that she would come back. Had he not heard that her kindest favours had been the Spaniard's, ere his noble Grace had come across her path? With that almost morbid humility which is such a peculiar and inalienable characteristic of a great love, he thought it quite natural that she should love Don Miguel, or any other man, rather than him, and now he was only too willing to suppose that she had gone to her favoured gallant, leaving him in the ridiculous and painful position in which she had wantonly placed him.
He had waited in a desultory fashion, not really hoping that she would come. Then, as silence began to fall more and more upon the Palace, and the clock in the great tower boomed the midnight hour, he had finally turned his steps towards his own apartments.
To reach them he had to go along the cloisters, and traverse the great audience chamber, which lay between his suite of rooms and that occupied by the Cardinal de Moreno and Don Miguel de Suarez.
As he entered the vast room he was unpleasantly surprised to see the young Spaniard standing beside the distant window.
The lights had been put out, but the two enormous bays were open, letting in a flood of brilliant moonlight. The night was peculiarly balmy and sweet, and through the window could be seen the exquisite panorama of the gardens and terraces of Hampton Court, with the river beyond bathed in silvery light.
Wessex had paused at the door, his eyes riveted on that distant picture, which recalled so vividly to his aching senses the poetic idyll of this afternoon.
It was strange that Don Miguel should be standing just where he was, between him and that vision so full of memories now.
Wessex turned his eyes on the Marquis, who had not moved when he entered, and seemed absorbed in thought.
"And there is the man who before me has looked in Ursula's eyes," mused the Duke. "To think that I have a fancy for killing that young reprobate, because he happens to be more attractive than myself . . . or because . . ."
He suddenly tried to check his thoughts. They were beginning to riot in his brain. Until this very moment, when he saw the Spaniard standing before him, he had not realized how much he hated him. All that is primitive, passionate, semi-savage in man rose in him at the sight of his rival. A wild desire seized him to grip that weakling by the throat, to make him quake and suffer, if only one thousandth part of the agony which had tortured him this past hour.
He deliberately crossed the room, then opened the door which led to his own apartments.
"Harry, old friend," he called to his dog, "go, wait for me within. I have no need for thy company just now."
The beautiful creature, with that peculiar unerring instinct of the faithful beast, seemed quite reluctant to obey. He stopped short, wagged his tail, indulged in all the tricks which he knew usually appealed to his master, begging in silent and pathetic language to be allowed to remain. But Wessex was quite inexorable, and Harry Plantagenet had perforce to go.
The door closed upon the Duke's most devoted friend. In the meanwhile Don Miguel had evidently perceived His Grace, and now when Wessex turned towards him he exclaimed half in surprise, half in tones of thinly veiled vexation—
"Ah! His Grace of Wessex? Still astir, my lord, at this hour?"
"At your service, Marquis," rejoined the Duke coldly. "Has His Eminence gone to his apartments? . . . Can I do aught for you?"
"Nay, I thank Your Grace . . . I thought you too had retired," stammered the young man, now in visible embarrassment. "I must confess I did not think to see you here."
"Whom did you expect to see, then?" queried Wessex curtly.
"Nay! methought Your Grace had said that questions could not be indiscreet."
"Well?"
"Marry! . . . your question this time, my lord . . ."
"Was indiscreet?"
"Oh!" said the Spaniard deprecatingly.
"Which means that you expect a lady."
"Has Your Grace any objection to that?" queried Don Miguel with thinly veiled sarcasm.
"None at all," replied Wessex, who felt his patience and self-control oozing away from him bit by bit. "I am not your guardian; yet, methinks, it ill becomes a guest of your rank to indulge in low amours beneath the roof of the Queen of England."
"Why should you call them low?" rejoined the Marquis, whose manner became more and more calm and bland, as Wessex seemed to wax more violent. "You, of all men, my lord, should know that we, at Court, seek for pleasure where we are most like to find it."
"Aye! and in finding the pleasure oft lose our honour."
"Your Grace is severe."
"If my words offend you, sir, I am at your service."
"Is this a quarrel?"
"As you please."
"Your Grace . . ."
"Pardi, my lord Marquis," interrupted Wessex haughtily and in tones of withering contempt, "I did not know that there were any cowards among the grandees of Spain."
"By Our Lady, Your Grace is going too far," retorted the Spaniard.
And with a quick gesture he unsheathed his sword.
Wessex' eyes lighted up with the fire of satisfied desire. He knew now that this was what he had longed for ever since the young man's insolent laugh had first grated unpleasantly on his ear. For the moment all that was tender and poetic and noble in him was relegated to the very background of his soul. He was only a human creature who suffered and wished to be revenged, an animal who was wounded and was seeking to kill. He would have blushed to own that what he longed for now, above everything on earth, was the sight of that man's blood.
"Nay, my lord!" he said quietly, "are we children to give one another a pin-prick or so?"
And having drawn his sword, he unsheathed his long Italian dagger, and holding it in his left hand he quickly wrapped his cloak around that arm.
"You are mad," protested Don Miguel with a frown, for a sword and dagger fight meant death to one man at least, and a mortal combat with one so desperate as Wessex had not formed part of the programme so carefully arranged by the Cardinal de Moreno.
"By the Mass, man," was the Duke's calm answer, "art waiting to feel my glove on thy cheek?"
"As you will, then," retorted Don Miguel, reluctantly drawing his own dagger, "but I swear that this quarrel is none of my making."
"No! 'tis of mine!en garde!"
Don Miguel was pale to the lips. Not that he was a coward; he had fought more than one serious duel beforenow, and risked his life often enough for mere pastime or sport. But there was such a weird glitter in the eyes of this man, whom he and his chief had so wantonly wronged for the sake of their own political advancement, such a cold determination to kill, that, much against his will, the Spaniard felt an icy shiver running down his spine.
The room too! half in darkness, with only the strange, almost unreal brilliancy of the moon shedding a pallid light over one portion of the floor, that portion where one man was to die.
The Marquis de Suarez had been provoked; his was therefore the right of selecting his own position for the combat. In the case of such a peculiar illumination this was a great initial advantage.
The Spaniard, with his back towards the great open bay, had his antagonist before him in full light, whilst his own figure appeared only as a dark silhouette, elusive and intensely deceptive. Wessex, however, seemed totally unconscious of the disadvantage of his own position. He was still dressed in the rich white satin doublet in which he had appeared at the banquet a few hours ago. The broad ribbon of the Garter, the delicate lace at the throat, the jewels which he wore, all would help in the brilliant light to guide his enemy's dagger towards his breast.
But he seemed only impatient to begin; the issue, one way or the other, mattered to him not at all. The Spaniard's death or his own was all that he desired:—perhaps his own now—for choice. He felt less bitter, less humiliated since he held his sword in his hand, and only vaguely recollected that Spaniards made a boast these days of carrying poisoned daggers in their belts.
Whilst Don Miguel was preparing for the fight, a slight sound suddenly caused him to turn towards that side of the room, from whence a tall oaken door led to his own and the Cardinal's apartments. His eyes, rendered peculiarly keen by the imminence of his own danger, quickly perceived a thin fillet of artificial light running upwards from the floor, which at once suggested to him that the door was slightly ajar.
It had certainly been closed when Wessex first entered the room. Behind it, as Don Miguel well knew, the Cardinal de Moreno had been watching; he was the great stage-manager of the drama which he had contrived should be enacted this night before His Grace. The young Marquis was only one of the chief actors; the principal actress being the wench Mirrab, who, surfeited with wine, impatient and violent, had been kept a close prisoner by His Eminence these last six hours past.
That little glimmer of light dispelled Don Miguel's strange obsession. The Cardinal, with the slight opening of that door, had plainly meant to indicate that he was on the alert, and that this unrehearsed scene of the drama would not be enacted without his interference. The Duke, who had his back to that portion of the room, had evidently seen and heard nothing, and the whole little episode had occurred in less than three seconds.
Now Don Miguel was ready, and the next moment theswords clashed against one another. Eye to eye these two enemies seemed to gauge one another's strength. For a moment their daggers, held in the left hand, only acted as weapons of defence, the cloaks wrapped round their arms were still efficient sheaths.
Very soon the Spaniard realized that his original fears had not been exaggerated. Wessex was a formidable opponent, absolutely calm, a skilful fencer, and with a wrist which seemed made of steel. His attack was quick and vigorous; step by step, slowly but unerringly, he forced the Marquis away from the stronghold of his position. Try how he might, parry how he could, the young Spaniard gradually found himself thrust more and more into full light, whilst his antagonist was equally steadily working his way round towards the more advantageous post.
No sound came from the Cardinal's apartments, and Don Miguel dared not even glance towards the door, for the swiftest look would have proved his undoing.
Wessex' face was like a mask, quite impassive, almost stony in its rigid expression of perfect determination. The Spaniard was still steadily losing ground, another few minutes and he would be in full light, whilst the Duke's figure would become the deceptive silhouette. Under those conditions, and against such a perfect swordsman, the Marquis knew that his doom was sealed. An icy sweat broke out from his forehead, he would have bartered half his fortune to know what was going on behind the door.
For one awful moment the thought crossed his mind that His Eminence perhaps had decreed his death at the hands of Wessex. Who knows? the ways of diplomacy are oft tortuous and ever cruel; none knew that better than Don Miguel de Suarez himself. How oft had he callously exercised the right given him by virtue of some important mission entrusted to him, in order to sweepruthlessly aside the lesser pawns which stood in the way of his success?
Had he become the lesser pawn now in this gigantic game of chess, in which the hand of a Queen was the final prize for the victor? Was his death, at the hand of this man, of more importance to the success of the Cardinal's intrigues than his life would be? If so, Heaven alone could help him, for His Eminence would not hesitate to sacrifice him mercilessly.
The horror of these thoughts gave the young man the strength of despair. But he might just as well have tried to pierce a stone wall, as to break thegardeof this impassive and deadly opponent. His own wrist was beginning to tire; the combat had lasted nigh on a quarter of an hour, and the next few minutes would inevitably see its fatal issue. The Duke's attacks became more swift and violent; once or twice already Don Miguel had all but felt His Grace's dagger at his throat.
Suddenly a piercing woman's shriek seemed to rend the air, the swift sound of running footsteps, the grating of a heavy door on its hinges, and then there came another cry, more definite this time—
"Wessex, have a care!"
Both the men had paused, of course. Even in this supreme moment when one life hung in the balance, how could they help turning towards the distant corner of the room whence had come that piercing shriek.
The door leading to the Marquis' apartments was wide open now; a flood of light came from the room beyond, and against this sudden glare, which seemed doubly brilliant to the dazed eyes of the combatants, there appeared a woman's figure, dressed in long flowing robes of clinging white, her golden hair hanging in a wild tangle over her shoulders. A quaint and weird figure! at first only a silhouette against a glowing background, but anon itcame forward, disappeared completely for a while in the dense shadow of an angle of the room, but the next moment emerged again in the full light of the moon, ghostlike and fantastic; a girlish form, her white draperies half falling from her shoulders, revealing a white throat and one naked breast; on her hair a few green leaves, bacchante-like entwined and drooping, half hidden in the tangle of ruddy gold.
Wessex gazed on her, his sword dropped from his hand.
It was she! She, as a hellish vision had shown her to him half an hour ago, in the great room wherein he had first kissed her: a weird and witchlike creature, with eyes half veiled, and coarsened, sensuous lips. It was but a vision even now, for he could not see her very distinctly, his eyes were dazed with the play of the moonlight upon his sword, and she, after her second cry, had drawn back into the shadow.
Don Miguel on the other hand had not seemed very surprised at her apparition, only somewhat vexed, as he exclaimed—
"Lady Ursula, I pray you . . ."
He placed his hand on her shoulder. It was the gesture of a master, and the tone in which he spoke to her was one of command.
"I pray you go within," he added curtly; "this is no place for women."
Wessex' whole soul writhed at the words, the touch, the attitude of the man towards her; an hour ago, when he stood beside her, he would have bartered a kingdom for the joy of taking her hand.
She seemed dazed, and her form swayed strangely to and fro; suddenly she appeared to be conscious of her garments, for with a certain shamed movement of tardy modesty she pulled a part of her draperies over her breast.
"I wish to speak with him," she whispered under her breath to Don Miguel.
But the Spaniard had no intention of prolonging this scene a second longer than was necessary. It had from the first been agreed between him and the Cardinal that the Duke should not obtain more than a glimpse at the wench. At any moment, after the first shock of surprise, Wessex might look more calmly, more steadily at the girl. She might begin to speak, and her voice—the hoarse voice of a gutter-bred girl—would betray the deception more quickly than anything else. The one brief vision had been all-sufficient: Don Miguel was satisfied. It had been admirably staged so far by the eminent manager who still remained out of sight, it was for the young man now to play his rôle skilfully to the end.
"Come!" he said peremptorily.
He seized the girl's wrist, whispered a few words in her ear which never reached her dull brain, and half led, half dragged her towards the door.
Wessex broke into a long, forced laugh, which expressed all the bitterness and anguish of his heart.
Oh! the humiliation of it all! Wessex suddenly felt that all his anger had vanished. The whole thing was so contemptible, the banality of the episode so low and degrading, that hatred fell away from him like a mantle, leaving in his soul a sense of unutterable disgust and even of abject ridicule. His pride alone was left to suffer. He who had always held himself disdainfully aloof from all the low intrigues inseparable from Court life, who had kept within his heart a reverent feeling of chivalry and veneration for all women, whether queen or peasant, constant or fickle, for him to have sunk to this! one of a trio of vulgar mountebanks, one of two aspirants for the favours of a wanton.
Of trickery, of deception, he had not one thought.How could he have? The events of the past hours had prepared him for this scene, and he had had only a brief vision in semi-darkness, whilst everything had been carefully prepared to blind him completely by this dastardly trick.
"By Our Lady," he said at last, with that same bitter, heartrending laugh, "the interruption was most opportune, and we must thank the Lady Ursula for her timely intervention. What! you and I, my lord, crossing swords for that?" and he pointed with a gesture of unutterable scorn towards the swaying figure of the woman. "A farce, my lord, a farce! Not a tragedy!"
He threw his dagger on to the floor and sheathed his sword, just as Don Miguel had succeeded in pushing the girl out of the room and closing the door on her.
The Spaniard began to stammer an apology.
"I pray you speak no more of it, my lord," said the Duke coldly, "'tis I owe you an apology for interfering in what doth not concern me. As His Eminence very pertinently remarked just now, hospitality should forbid me to fly my hawk after your lordship's birds. My congratulations, my lord Marquis!" he added with a sneer. "Your taste, I perceive, is unerring. Good night and pleasant dreams."
He bowed lightly and turned to go.
Don Miguel watched him until his tall figure had disappeared behind the door. Then he sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction.
"An admirably enacted comedy," he mused; "a thousand congratulations to His Eminence. Carramba! this is the best night's work we have accomplished since we trod this land of fogs."
Mirrab, during that very brief drama in which she herself had played the chief rôle, had vainly tried to collect her scattered wits. For the last few hours two noble gentlemen, one of whom wore gorgeous purple robes, had been plying her with wine and with promises that she should see the Duke of Wessex if she agreed to answer to the name of "Lady Ursula," seeing that His Grace never spoke to any one under the rank of a lady.
A clever and simple trick, which readily deceived this uneducated, half-crazy wench, whose life had been spent in gipsy booths, and whose intellect had long been quashed by the constant struggle for existence, which mostly consisted of senseless and fantastic exhibitions designed for the delectation of ignorant yokels.
She liked the idea of being called "my lady" even when it was done in mockery, and was delighted at the thought of appearing in this new guise before the Duke of Wessex, for whom she had entertained a curious and passionate adoration ever since the dramatic episode of Molesey Fair. She liked still more the voluptuous garments which she was bidden to don, and was ready enough to concede to the young foreigner who thus embellished her, any favours which he chose to demand.
That had been her training, poor soul! her calling in life—a vulgar trickster by day, a wanton by night. Do not be too hard in your judgment, mistress! she knewnothing of home, very little of kindred; born in the gutter, her ambition did not soar beyond good food and a little money to spend.
The Duke of Wessex had saved her life; she was proud of that, and since that day she had had a burning ambition to see him again. She had hoped that a warning from the stars would prove a certain passport to his presence, but His Eminence the Cardinal and the other young gentleman had assured her that a noble name would alone lead her to him.
Thus she had been content to wait a few hours: the wine was good and the foreigner not too exacting. After awhile she had dropped to sleep like some tired animal, curled up on a rug on the floor. The clash of arms had roused her, and finding that every door yielded to her touch, she ran out, in eager curiosity to see whence came the sound. Her first cry, on seeing that strange moonlit combat, was one of sheer terror; then she recognized Wessex, and gave him a cry of warning.
But the wine which she had drunk had made her head heavy. She would have liked to go to the Duke, but the room seemed to be whirling unpleasantly around her. Ere she had time to utter another word the young foreigner had roughly seized her wrist and dragged her away. She was too weak to resist him, and was reluctantly compelled to follow his lead. The next moment he had closed the door on her, and she knew nothing more.
Excitement had somewhat dazed her, but a moment or two later she partially recovered and collected her scattered senses. She put her ear to the door and tried to listen, but she could hear nothing. Behind her was the corridor, out of which opened several doors, one of these being the one which gave into the room wherein she had been confined the whole evening. Not a sound came from there either. There was not a sign of my lord Cardinal.
Once more she tried the handle of the big door in front of her: it yielded, and she found herself back in the room where the fight had just taken place. The moonlight still streamed in through the open window. She could not see into the corners of the great hall, but straight in front of her was another massive door, exactly similar to the one in which she stood.
The room itself seemed empty. Wessex had gone, and she had not spoken to him. That was the one great thought which detached itself from the turmoil which was going on in her brain. The door opposite fascinated her. Perhaps he had gone through there. Nay! surely so, for it almost seemed to her as if she could hear that strange, bitter laugh of his still echoing in the distance.
She ran across the room, fearful lest he should disappear altogether ere she could get to him. But even before she reached the door she felt her arm seized, her body dragged violently back. By the light of the moon, which fell full on him, she recognized the young foreign lord.
He had summarily placed himself before her, and he held her wrist in a tight grip.
"Let me go!" she murmured hoarsely.
"No!"
"Iwillgo to him!"
"You cannot!"
He spoke from between his teeth, as if in a fury of rage or fear, she could not tell which, but as she, poor soul, had never inspired terror in any one she quaked before his rage.
Just then she heard, as if in the room beyond, a few footsteps, then a call: "Come, Harry!" and after that the opening and shutting of a distant door. It was the Duke of Wessex going again, somewhere where perhaps she could not find him again, and here was this man standing between her and the object of her adoration.
With a vigorous jerk she freed herself from Don Miguel's grasp.
"Have a care, man, have a care," she said in a low, trembling voice, in which a suppressed passion seemed suddenly to vibrate. "Let me pass, or . . ."
"Silence, wench!" commanded Don Miguel. "Another word and I call the guard and have thee whipped as a disturber of the peace."
She started as if stung with the very lash with which he so callously threatened her. The fumes of wine and of excitement were being slowly expelled from her dull brain. A vague sense of bitter wrong crept into her heart; her own native shrewdness—the shrewdness of the country wench—made her dimly realize that she had been fooled: how and for what purpose she could not yet comprehend.
She pushed the tangled hair from her forehead, mechanically readjusting her cumbersome garments, then she stepped close up to the young Spaniard; she crossed her arms over her breast and looked him boldly in the eyes.
"Soho! my fine lord!" she said, speaking with a strange and pathetic effort at calmness, "that's it, is it? . . . and do ye take me for a fool, that I do not see through your tricks? . . . You and that purple-robed hypocrite there wanted to make use of me . . . you cajoled me with soft words . . . promises . . . what? . . . Bah! you tricked me, I say, do you hear?" she added with ever-increasing vehemence, "tricked me that you might trick him. . . . With all your talks of Ursula and Lady . . . the devil alone knows what ye wanted. . . . Well! you've had your way . . . he looked on me as he would on a plague-stricken cur . . . mangy and dirty. . . . Was that what ye wanted? . . . You've had your will . . . are ye satisfied . . . what more do ye want of me?"
Don Miguel, much astonished at this unexpected outburst of passion, gazed at her with a sneer, then he shrugged his shoulders and said coldly—
"Nothing, wench! His Grace of Wessex does not desire thy company, and I cannot allow thee to molest him. If thou'lt depart in peace, there'll be a well-filled purse for thee . . . if not . . . the whip, my girl . . . the whip . . . understand!"
"I will not go!" she repeated with dogged obstinacy. "I'll not . . . I'll not . . . I'll see him just once . . . he was good to me. . . . I love his beautiful face and his kind, white hands; I want to kiss them. . . . I'll not go . . . I'll not . . . till I've kissed them. . . . So do not stand in my way, fine sir . . . but let me get to him. . . ."
The obstinate desire, half a mania now, had grown upon her with this wanton thwarting of her wishes. A wholly unfettered passion seethed in her, half made up of hatred against this man who had fooled her and caused her to be spurned with unutterable contempt by Wessex.
"I'll give thee three minutes in which to get sober, my wench!" remarked Don Miguel placidly. "After that, take heed. . . ."
He laughed a long, cruel laugh, and looked at her with an evil leer, up and down.
"After that thou'lt go," he said slowly and significantly, "but not in peace. The Palace watch have a heavy hand . . . three men to give thee ten lashes each . . . till thy shoulders bleed, wench . . . aye! I'll have thee whipped till thou die under it . . . so go now or . . ."
He looked so evil, so threatening, so full of baffled rage, that instinctively she drew back a few steps away from him, into the gloom. . . . As she did so her foot knocked against something on the floor, whilst the sharp point of some instrument of steel penetrated through the thin soles of her shoes.
She had enough presence of mind, enough determination,enough deadly hatred of him, not to give forth one sound; but when he, almost overcome with his own furious passion, had paused awhile and turned from her, she stooped very quickly and picked up that thing which had struck her foot. It was an unsheathed dagger.
Silently, surreptitiously, she hid it within the folds of her gown, whilst keeping a tight grip on its handle with her clenched right hand. Now she felt safe, and sure of herself and of ultimate success.
Don Miguel, seeing how quiet she had become, heaved a sigh of relief. For one moment he had had the fear that she meant to create a scandal, attract the guard with her screams, bring spectators upon the scene, and thus expose the whole despicable intrigue which had just been so successfully carried through.
But now she was standing quite rigid and mute, half hidden by the gloom, evidently terrorized by the cruel threats hurled against her.
"Well, which is it to be, wench," said the young man more calmly, "the purse of gold or the whipping-post?"
She did not reply at once, and a strange, almost awesome silence fell upon the scene. Not a sound from any portion of the Palace. Even from the gardens and terraces, beyond the night watchman's call had ceased to echo, only from far, very far away beyond the river and the distant meadows the melancholy hooting of an owl broke the intense stillness of the place.
Then the woman began to speak, slowly at first, very calmly, and in a voice deep and low, like the sound of muffled thunder, growing louder and louder, more violent, more passionate as she worked herself up into a very whirlwind of fury.
"Powers of Hell!" she said, "grant me patience! Man, listen. Ye don't understand me. . . . I am not one of your fine Court ladies, who simpers and trips alongarrayed in silken kirtle. . . . I am called Mirrab, a witch, d'ye hear? . . . a witch who knows naught about the law, and the guard, nor about queens and richly dressed lords. The Duke of Wessex saved my life . . . and I want to go to him. . . . Do ye let me go. . . . What is it to ye if I see him? . . . Do ye let me go. . . ."
Her voice broke into a sob of agonized entreaty and baffled desire.
"Shall I call the guard?" rejoined Don Miguel coldly.
She was now quite close to him, he, still between her and the door which she wished to reach, was half turned away from her, in obvious impatience, and looking at her over his shoulder with a sneer and a cruel frown.
"Do ye let me go!" she entreated once more.
For sole answer he made pretence at calling the guard.
"What ho there! the guard! What ho!"
But the last sound broke in a death rattle. Even as he spoke Mirrab had thrust the dagger with all her might between his shoulders. He fell forward on the floor, whilst with one last gasp of agony he called upon the man whom he had so deeply wronged.
"A moi! . . . Wessex! . . . I die! . . . A moi! . . ."
And the silvery moon, who had just gazed on so placidly whilst human passions ran riot in this vast audience chamber, who had shed her poetic light on hatred, revenge, and lust, suddenly veiled her brilliant face: the room was plunged in total darkness as the Marquis de Suarez breathed his last.
For some time already there had been a certain amount of commotion in the Palace. Mirrab's shouts when first she saw the combat, then her high-voiced altercation with Don Miguel, had roused the attention of some of the guard who were stationed in the cloister green court close by. Some of the gentlemen too were astir.
Wessex himself soon after he had reached his own apartments heard the sound of angry voices proceeding from the room which he had just quitted. He could hear nothing distinctly, but it seemed to him as if a woman and a man were quarrelling violently. He tried to shut his ears to the sound. He would hear nothing, know nothing more of the wanton who had fooled and mocked him.
But there are certain instincts in every chivalrous man, which will not be gainsaid; among these is the impulse to go at once to the assistance of a woman if she be in trouble or difficulty.
It was that impulse and nothing more which caused Wessex to retrace his footsteps. He had some difficulty in finding his way, now that there was no moonlight to guide him, but as soon as he re-entered the last room, which was next to the audience chamber, he heard the ominous "A moi!" of his dying opponent. Also all round him the obvious commotion of a number of footsteps all tending towards the same direction.
An icy horror suddenly gripped his heart. Not daring to imagine what had occurred, he hurried on. By instinct, for he could see nothing, he contrived to find and open the door, and still going forward he presently stumbled against something which lay heavy and inert at his feet.
In a moment he was on his knees, touching the prostrate body with a gentle hand; realizing that the unfortunate young man had fallen on his face, he tried with infinite care to lift and turn him as tenderly as he could.
Then suddenly he became conscious of another presence in the room. Nothing more than a ghostlike form of white, almost as rigid as the murdered man himself, whilst from the corridors close by the sound of approaching footsteps, still hesitating which way to go, became more and more distinct. A murmur of distant voices too gradually took on a definite sound.
"This way."
"No, that."
"In the court . . ."
"No! the audience chamber!"
The ghostly white-clad figure appeared as if turned to stone.
"Through the window," whispered Wessex with sudden vehemence, "it is not high!—quick! fly, in the name of God! while there's yet time!"
That was his only instinct now. He could not think of her as the woman he had loved, he understood nothing, knew nothing; but in the intense gloom which surrounded him he had lost sight of the witchlike and horrible vision which had dealt a death-blow to his love, he seemed only to see the green bosquets of the park, the pond, the marguerites, and another white-clad figure, a girlish face crowned with the golden halo of purity and innocence.
The wild passion which he had felt for her changed to an agonizing horror, not only of her deed, but at the thoughtof seeing her surrounded, rough-handled by the guard, shamed and treated as a mad and drunken wanton.
He despised himself for his own weakness, but at this awful and supreme moment, when he realized that the idol which he had set up and worshipped was nothing but defiled mud, he felt for her only tenderness and pity.
Love had touched him once, and he knew now that nothing would ever tear her image completely from out his heart. Love, great, ardent, immutable, was dead; but death is oft more powerful than life, and his dead love pleaded for his chivalry, for his protection, with all the power of sweet memories, and aided by the agonizing grip of cold, stiff hands clinging to his heartstrings.
He pointed once more to the open window.
"Quick! in God's name!"
The girl moved towards him.
"Ah no, no, for pity's sake. Go!"
There was not a second to be lost. Mirrab, realizing her danger, was sobered and alert. The next moment she was clinging to the window-sill and measuring its height from the terrace below. It was but a few feet. As agile as a cat she flung herself over, and disappeared into the gloom just as the door leading into the audience chamber was thrown violently open, and a group of people—gentlemen, guard, servitors—bearing torches came rushing into the room.
"Water! . . . a leech!—quick, some of you!" commanded Wessex, who held Don Miguel's head propped against his knee.
"What is it? . . ." queried every one with unanimous breath.
Some pressed forward, snatching the flaming torches from the hands of the servitors. In a moment Wessex and the dead Marquis were surrounded, and the room flooded with weird, flickering light.
From the door of the apartments on the left a suave and urbane voice had sounded softly—
"What is it?"
"The Spanish Marquis," murmured the foremost man in the crowd.
"Wounded?" queried another.
"Nay! I fear me dead," said Wessex quietly.
Then the groups parted instinctively, for the same urbane voice had repeated its query in tones of the gravest anxiety.
"I was at prayers, and heard this noise. . . . What is it?"
The Cardinal de Moreno now stood beside the dead body of his friend.
"Your Grace! and? . . ."
"Alas, Your Eminence!" replied Wessex, "Don Miguel de Suarez is dead."
"Alas, Your Eminence! Don Miguel de Suarez is dead."
"Alas, Your Eminence! Don Miguel de Suarez is dead."
The Cardinal made no comment, and the next moment was seen to stoop and pick up something from the ground.
"But how?" queried one of the gentlemen.
"A duel?" added another.
"No, not a duel, seemingly," said His Eminence softly. "Don Miguel's sword and dagger are both sheathed."
He turned to the captain of the guard, who was standing close beside him.
"Will this dagger explain the mystery, think you, my son?" he asked, handing a small weapon to the soldier. "I picked it up just now."
The guard—he was but a young man—took the dagger from His Eminence's hand, and looked at it attentively. Those who were nearest to him noticed that he suddenly started, and that the hand which held the narrow pointed blade trembled visibly.
"Your Grace's dagger!" he said at last, handing theweapon to Wessex. "It has Your Grace's arms upon the hilt."
Dead silence followed these simple words. The Duke seemed half dazed, and mechanically took the dagger from the captain's hand; the blade still bore on it the marks of Don Miguel's blood.
"Yes! it is my dagger," he murmured mechanically.
"But no doubt Your Grace can explain . . ." suggested His Eminence indulgently.
Wessex was about to reply when one of the guard suddenly interposed.
"I seemed to see a woman flying through the gardens just now, captain," he said, addressing his officer.
"A woman?" asked His Eminence. "What woman?"
"Nay, my lord, I couldn't see distinctly," replied the soldier, "but she was dressed all in white, and ran very quickly along the terrace not far from this window."
"Then Your Grace will perhaps be able to tell us . . ." suggested the Cardinal with utmost benevolence.
"I can tell Your Eminence nothing," replied Wessex coldly. "I was in this room all the time and saw no woman near."
"Your Grace was here?" said His Eminence in gentle tones of profound astonishment, "alone with Don Miguel de Suarez? . . . The woman . . ."
"There was no woman here," rejoined the Duke of Wessex firmly, "and I was alone with Don Miguel de Suarez."
There was dead silence now, the moon, pale, inquisitive, brilliant, peeped in through the window to see what was amiss. She saw a number of men recoiling, awestruck, from a small group composed of a dead man and of the first gentleman in the land self-confessed as a murderer. No one dared to speak, the moment was too solemn, tooterrible, for any speech save a half-smothered sigh of horror.
The captain of the guard was the first to recollect his duty.
"Your Grace's sword . . ." he began, somewhat shamefacedly.
"Ah yes! I had forgot," said Wessex quietly, as he rose to his feet. He drew his sword from its sheath, and with one quick, sudden wrench, broke the blade across his knee. Then he threw the pieces of steel on the ground.
"I am ready to follow you, friend captain," he said, with all the hauteur, all the light, easy graciousness so peculiar to himself.
The groups parted silently, almost respectfully, as His Grace of Wessex passed out of the room—a prisoner.
In the loneliness and silence of the Tower, the Duke of Wessex had had enough leisure to think.
One fatal autumn afternoon, and what a change in the destinies of his life! Yesterday he was the first gentleman in England, loved by many, feared by a few, reverenced by all as the perfect embodiment of national pride and national grandeur—almost a king.
And to-day?
But of himself, his own obvious fate, the shame and disgrace of his present position, he thought very little. Ever an easy-going philosopher, he had as yet kept the insouciance of the gamester who has staked and lost and is content to retire from the board. One thing more, remember! Life in those days was not the priceless treasure which later civilization would have us believe it. There was a greater simplicity of faith, a more childlike certitude in the great truths of futurity, which we in our epoch are so ready to cavil at.
If nations and individuals committed excesses of unparalleled cruelty in the name of their respective creeds, if men hated each other, tortured each other, destroyed one another, it was because they misunderstood the teachings of religion, and not because they ignored or disbelieved them.
The cruelties themselves are unjustifiable, the mind of twentieth-century civilization can but gaze at them in mute horror, history can but record and deplore. But the religion which prompted them—for it was religion—was not the feeble, anæmic plaything of an effete generation in search of new excitements; it was strong and virile, alike in the atrocity of its crimes and the sublimity of its virtues.
Thus with a man like Wessex. Life had been pleasant, of course, a bed of roses worthy even of one of our modern sybarites, but to him only the episode, which higher thoughts and Christian belief have ever suggested that it should be.
Perhaps it would be too much to say that faith alone caused him to look lightly upon this sudden, tragic ending of his brilliant career, but it undoubtedly helped him to preserve that easy and unembittered frame of mind of the philosopher, who, with life, loses that which hath but little value.
And now indeed, what worth would life have for him? This is where thoughts became bitter and cruel, not over death, not over disgrace, but over the treachery of a woman and the flight of an illusion. What did it all mean?
Sometimes now, when he sat looking straight before him at the cold grey walls of his prison, he seemed to see that strange dual personality mocking him with all the witchlike elusiveness which had mystified and tortured him from the first.
His "Fanny"! that beautiful vision of innocent girlhood; arch, coquettish, tender yet passionate, the clear depths of those blue eyes, the purity of that radiant smile!
And then she! Ursula Glynde! with bare shoulder and breast, cheeks flushed, but not with shame, eyes moist, yet not with tears, submitting with feeble, hoarse protests to the masterful touch of an insolent Spaniard, only to take revenge later with the elemental barbarity of the street wench, too drunk to understand her crime.
Every fibre within him cried out that this was not the woman who had plucked a marguerite petal by petal, andquivered with delight at sound of the nightingale's voice among the willows; not the woman on whose soft girlish cheeks he had loved to call forth, with an ardent gaze or a bold word, a tender blush of rosy red, not the woman whom in one brief second he had learnt to love, whom in one mad, heavenly moment he had kissed.
Every sense in him clamoured for the belief that it had all been an ugly dream, an autumn madness from which he would presently wake at her feet.
Every sense! yet his eyes had seen her! his ears had heard her respond to her name, when uttered roughly by the man who seemed to be her master.
The truth itself never once dawned upon him. The whole trick had been managed with such devilish cunning, every piece in the intricate mechanism of that intrigue had been so carefully adjusted, that it would have required superhuman insight, or the cold, calculating mind of an unemotional mathematician, to have hit upon its natural explanation.
Wessex possessed neither. He was just a man touched for the first time in his life with the strongest passion of which human creatures are capable. He loved a woman with all the ardour, all the unreasoning instincts, all the sublime weakness and folly of which a loyal and strong heart is capable. That woman had proved a liar and a wanton in his sight.
He was forced to believe that; had he not seen her? Which of us hath ever really grasped the fact that one human being may be fashioned line for line, feature for feature, exactly like another? Yet such a thing is. Nature hath every freak. Why not that one?
He thought of everything, of every solution, of every possibility. Heaven help him! of every excuse, but never of that. That Nature, in one of those wayward moods in which no one would dare deny that she at timesindulges, had fashioned a kitchen wench as a lifelike replica of one of the most beautiful women in England—that one simple, indisputable, easily verified fact, never once entered his tortured mind.
She was mad! yes!—irresponsible for her own actions, yes!—wilfully wanton! no! a thousand times no! Hers was a dual nature, wherein angels and devils alternately held sway!
He, poor fool, had fallen under the spell of the angels, and the devils had then turned him away from his shrine, shattered his illusions, shown him his idol's feet of clay, then dared him ever to worship again, ever to forget the mud which cloyed the bottom of the limpid stream.
With Harry Plantagenet for sole companion, during the brief days which preceded his trial, Wessex had indeed leisure for his thoughts. The faithful animal knew quite well that his master suffered and could not now be comforted, but he would sit for hours with his wise head resting on Wessex' knee, his gentle eyes fixed in mute sympathy upon the grave face of the Duke.
He knew better than any one that his master was in serious trouble, for when they were alone together, when no one was there who could see, no one but this true and silent companion, then philosophy, pride, and bitterness would fly to the winds and a few hot tears would ease the oppression which made Wessex' heart ache almost to breaking.
And Harry Plantagenet, when he saw those tears, would curl himself up and go to sleep. With his keen, canine instinct, he felt no doubt only that an atmosphere of peace and rest had descended on the gloomy Tower prison.
The faithful creature could not understand that it was the visit of the angel of sorrow, who, in passing, had lulled a weary man's agonizing soul with the gentle, soothing touch of his wing.
Thus day followed day, whilst in the great world without, England was preparing to see her premier lord arraigned before his peers on a charge of murder. And in one of the smaller chambers of her own private apartments at Hampton Court, Mary Tudor sat alone, praying and thinking, thinking and praying again.
Not a queen now, not a proud and wilful Tudor, passionate, cruel, or capricious, but only a middle-aged, broken-hearted woman, with eyes swollen with weeping, and brain heavy with eternally reiterated desires.
To save him! to save him!
But how?
That he had committed so foul a crime as to stab an enemy in the back, this in the very face of his own confession Mary still obstinately refused to believe. The rumours anent the presence of a woman in that part of the Palace and at that fatal hour had of course reached her ears. Jealousy and hatred, which had raged within her, had readily fastened on Ursula Glynde as the cause, if not the actual perpetrator of the dastardly crime.
That a woman was somehow or other connected with the terrible events of that night, every one was of course ready to admit, but in what manner no one was able to conjecture.
A murder had been committed. Of that there could be no doubt. Don Miguel de Suarez had been stabbedin the back! Not in fair fight, but brutally, callously stabbed! and he a guest at the English Court!
Of this barbarous, abominable act the Duke of Wessex stood self-convicted.
Impossible, of course! Preposterous! pronounced his friends. He! the first gentleman in England, brave to a fault, fastidious, artistic, and a perfect swordsman to boot! The very accusation was ridiculous.
Yet he stood self-convicted.
Why? in the name of Heaven! Why?
"To shield a woman," said His Grace's friends.
"What woman?" retorted his enemies.
The name of Lady Ursula Glynde had been faintly whispered, yet it seemed almost as preposterous to suppose that a beautiful young girl—refined, gentle, poetic, scarce out of her teens—would have the physical strength to commit so foul a deed, as to think of His Grace in connection with it.
Yet, in spite of that, the idea had gained ground, that the Lady Ursula Glynde could, an she would, throw some light on the mystery which surrounded the events of that terrible night, and no one brooded over that idea more determinedly than did Mary Tudor.
The young girl had of course denied all knowledge of what had or had not occurred. There was not a single definite fact that might even remotely connect her with the supposed enmity between Wessex and Don Miguel.
The Cardinal was not likely to speak, for the present turn of events suited his own plans to perfection.
My lord of Everingham was away in Scotland, and news travelled slowly these days. As for the Queen, she had nothing on which to found her suspicions, save her own hatred of the girl and the firm conviction that on that same night, an hour or two before the murder, Ursula and Wessex had met. She had then seen and upbraided thegirl in the presence of my lord Cardinal and the ladies; His Grace was not there then, but what happened immediately afterwards?
Had she but dared, Mary Tudor would have submitted her rival to mental and bodily torture, until she had extracted a confession from her. All she could do was to confine her to her own room in the Palace; she would not lose sight of her, although the young girl had begged for permission to quit the Court and retire to a convent, for the silence and peace of which she felt an unutterable longing.
The Duke's trial by his peers was fixed for the morrow.
It was but a fortnight since that fateful evening. His Grace had been in the Tower since then, and by virtue of his high influence and of his exceptional position had demanded and readily obtained a speedy trial.
Twenty-four hours in which a queen might perchance still save the man she loved from a shameful and ignominious death. And she had thought and schemed and suffered during fourteen days, as perhaps no other woman had ever thought and suffered before. She was queen, yet felt herself powerless to accomplish the one desire of her life, which she would have bartered her kingdom to obtain: the life of the man she loved.
But to-day she had pluckily dried her tears. The whole morning she had spent at her toilette, carefully selecting—with an agitation which would have been ridiculous, considering her age and appearance, had it not been so intensely pathetic—the raiment which she thought would become her most. She had a burning desire to appear attractive.
Earnestly she studied the lines of her face, covered incipient wrinkles and faded cheeks with cosmetics, spent nigh on an hour in the arrangement of her coif. Then she repaired to a small room, which was hung with tapestry ofa dull red, and into which the fading afternoon light would only peep very gently and discreetly.
Since then she had paced that narrow room incessantly and impatiently. Every few moments she rang a handbell, and to the stolid page or servitor in attendance she repeated the same anxious query—
"Is the guard in sight yet?"
"Not yet, Your Majesty," reiterated the page for the tenth time that day.
It was nigh on three o'clock in the afternoon when the Duchess of Lincoln at last came with the welcome news.
"The captain of the guard desires to report to Your Majesty that the Tower Guard, with His Grace the Duke of Wessex, are at the gates of the Palace."
Mary, with her usual characteristic gesture, pressed her hand to her heart, unable to speak with the sudden emotion which had sent the blood throbbing in her veins. The kind old Duchess, her wrinkled face expressive of the deepest sorrow and the most respectful sympathy, waited patiently until the Queen had recovered herself.
"'Tis well," said Mary, after a while. "I pray you, Duchess, to see that His Grace is introduced in here at once."
When she was alone she fell upon her knees, a great sob shook her delicate frame. She took her rosary from her girdle and with passionate fervour kissed the jewelled beads.
"Holy Mary, Mother of God!" she murmured amidst her tears, "make him listen to me! . . . pray for me . . . intercede for me, Queen of Heaven, mystic rose, tower of ivory, holy virgin, our mother . . . pray for me now . . . I would save him, and I would make him King. . . . Queen of Heaven, aid me . . . Mother of God, make him to love me . . . make him . . . to love me! . . ."
After that she rose, and carefully wiped her tears.She cast a glance at a small mirror which stood on the table, smoothed her hair and coif and forced her lips to smile.
The next moment there was a knock at the door, a clash of arms, the sound of voices, and two minutes later His Grace of Wessex was in the presence of the Queen.
She held out her hand to him and he stooped to kiss it. This gave her time to recover outward composure. Her fond heart ached at sight of him, for he seemed so altered. All the gaiety, the joy of life, that buoyancy of youth and ever-ready laughter which had always been his own peculiar charm, had completely gone from him: he looked older too, she thought, whilst his step even had lost its elasticity.
Mary motioned him to a seat close beside her. She herself had wisely chosen so to place her chair that the light from the window, whilst falling full on him, left her own figure in shadow.
"I trust, my lord," she began with a trembling voice, "that my guard at the Tower are showing you all the deference and doing you all the honour which I have commanded, and that your every comfort in that abode of evil hath been well looked to?"
"Your Majesty is ever gracious," replied Wessex, "far more than I deserve. The kindness shown me by every one at the Tower hath been a source of the deepest happiness to me."
"Nay! if I could . . ." began Mary impulsively.
Then she checked herself, determined not to let emotion get the better of her, ere she had told him all that she wished to say.
"My lord of Wessex," she resumed more firmly, "will you try to think that you are before a sincere and devoted friend; not before your Queen, but beside a woman whohath naught so much at heart as . . . your happiness? . . . Will you try?"
"The effort will not be great," he replied with a smile. "Your Majesty's kindness hath oft shamed me ere this."
"Then, if you value my friendship, my lord," rejoined Mary vehemently, "give me some assurance that to-morrow, before your judges and your peers, you will refute this odious charge which is brought against you."
"I crave Your Majesty's most humble pardon," said Wessex. "I have made confession of the crime imputed to me and can refute nothing."
"Nay, my lord, this is madness. You, the most gallant gentleman in England, you, to have done a deed so foul as would shame the lowest churl! Bah!" she added, with a bitter laugh, "'twere a grim farce, if it were not so terrible a tragedy!"
"Nay! not a tragedy, Your Majesty. Better men than I have made a failure of their lives. So I pray you, think no more of me."
"Think no more of you, dear lord," said Mary, with an infinity of reproach in her voice. "Ah me, I think of naught else since that awful night when they came and told me that you . . ."
There was a catch in her throat and perforce she had to pause. Oh! the irony of fate! The bitter satire of that wanton god, called Love!
Wessex looked at this proud Tudor Queen with a deep reverence, in which there was almost a thought of pity. This lonely, middle-aged woman, passionate, self-willed, who loved him with all the tenderness of pent-up motherhood! yet, try how he might! he could only respond to her true affection with cold respect and deep but unimpassioned gratitude! Yet was not her worth ten thousandfold more great than that of the wanton, whose image still filled his heart?
The one woman he honoured, the other he must perforce despise, and yet—such is the heart of man—he was more ready than ever to give up life, honour, a great name, and still greater destiny, so that the worthless object of his whole-hearted affection should be spared public disgrace.
He would not have named Ursula Glynde in this chaste, virgin Queen's presence, the very remembrance of that awful night was a pollution, but proud and haughty as he was, he dwelt on that memory, for it was the last which he had of her.
Mad, foolish, criminal, sublime Love! The sin of the loved one was dearer to him than all the virtues of which other women were capable, and whilst Mary Tudor would have given him a crown, he found it sweeter far to accept ignominy for Ursula's sake.
Perhaps something of all these thoughts which went on in his mind was reflected in his face, for Mary, who had been watching him keenly, said after a while with a tone of bitter resentment—
"My lord, I know that your silence over this mysterious affair is maintained out of a chivalrous desire to shield another . . . a woman. . . . Ah, consider. . . ."
"I have considered," replied Wessex firmly, "and I entreat Your Majesty . . ."
"Nay! 'tis I who entreat," she interrupted him vehemently. "Let us look facts in the face, my lord. Think you we are all fools to believe in your cock-and-bull story? A woman was seen that night flying from the Palace across the terrace . . . who was she? . . . whence did she come? . . . None of the watch could see her face, and the louts were too stupid to run after her . . . but there are those within this Court at this moment who will swear that that woman was Ursula Glynde."
Strangely enough this was the first time, since that fatal night, that this name was actually spoken in Wessex' hearing: it seemed to sting him like the cut of a lash across his face. For that one brief instant he lost his icy self-control, and Mary saw him wince.
"Ursula has been questioned," she continued, "but she remains obdurately silent. Believe me, my lord, you waste your chivalry in defence of a wanton."
But already Wessex had recovered himself.
"Your Majesty is mistaken," he rejoined calmly. "I know naught of Lady Ursula Glynde, and I defend no one by confessing my crime."
"You'll not persist in that insensate confession."
"'Twill not be necessary, Your Majesty, my judges have it in full, writ by mine own hand."
"You'll recant it."
"Why should I? 'Twas done willingly, in full possession of my faculties, under no compulsion."
"You'll recant it!" she persisted obstinately.
"Why should I?"
"Because I ask it of you," she said with great gentleness, "because I . . ."
She rose from her chair, and came closer to him. Then as he, respectfully, would have risen too, she placed a detaining hand upon his shoulder.
"Listen, my lord," she said, "for I've thought of it all. . . . This is not a moment when foolish prejudices and mock modesty should stand in the way of so great an issue. . . . I would throw my soul, my future life, my chances of paradise on that one stake—your innocence. . . ."
"Your Majesty . . ."
"Nay, I pray you, do not waste these few valuable minutes in vain protestations, which I'll not believe. . . . There's not a sane man in this country who thinks youguilty. . . . Yet on this confession your judges and peers will condemn you to death . . . must condemn you, so that the law of England is satisfied—and you, my lord, will suffer death with a lie upon your lips."
"The truth," rejoined Wessex firmly; "'twas I killed the Marquis de Suarez."
"A lie, my lord, a lie," protested Mary passionately; "the first you've ever told, the last you'll be allowed to breathe. . . . But let it pass. . . . I'll not torture your pride by forcing you to repeat that monstrous tale again. Would I could wrench her secret from the cowardly lips of that hussy. . . . Oh! if I were a man . . . a king like my father! . . . I'd have her broken on the wheel, tortured on the rack, whipped, lacerated, burnt, but I'd have the truth from her!"
Wessex took her hand in his. She was trembling from head to foot. The inward, real Mary Tudor had risen to the surface for this one brief moment. All the cruelty in her, which in after life made this wretched woman's name the byword of history, seemed just then to smother her very womanhood, her every tender thought. At the touch of Wessex' hand she paused suddenly, shamed and in tears, that he should have seen her like this.
"Before she came you said many sweet words to me," she murmured, as if trying to find an excuse for her terrible outburst. "Ah! I know . . . I know . . ." she added, with a bitter tone of melancholy, "you never loved me . . . how could you? . . . Men like you do not love an ill-favoured creature like me, old, bad-tempered . . . with something of the brute under the queenly robes. . . . But . . . you had affection for me once, my dear lord . . . and an unimpassioned love can bring happiness sometimes. . . . I would soon make you forget these last terrible days . . . and . . ."
Her voice had sunk down very low, almost to a whispernow, the hand, which he still held in his own, trembled violently and became burning hot.
"And no one would dare to whisper ill of the King Consort of England."
He turned to her; she was standing beside him, her hand imprisoned in his, her face bent so that he could not meet her eyes. But there was such an infinity of pathos in the attitude of this domineering, haughty woman wilfully humbling her pride before her love, that with a tender feeling of reverence he bent the knee before her and tenderly kissed her hand.
"Ah, my sweet Queen," he said with gentle sadness, "I am and always will be your most devoted subject—but do you not see how impossible it is that I should accept this great honour, which you would deign to confer upon me?"
"You refuse? Is it that you have not one spark of love for me?"
"I have far too much veneration for my Queen to allow her to sully her fair name. If being avowedly guilty I were acquitted by Your Majesty's desire, 'twould be said the Queen had saved her lover . . . and then married a felon."
"I would stake mine honour, that no one shall dare . . ."