PART II.
“Thecurseis come upon me!” criedThe lady of Shalott.
“Thecurseis come upon me!” criedThe lady of Shalott.
“Thecurseis come upon me!” criedThe lady of Shalott.
“Thecurseis come upon me!” cried
The lady of Shalott.
—Tennyson.
Lady Edith tried to banish the memory of her eventful day in the gayety and splendor of the masquerade ball she attended that night. In vain, for, strangely enough, it seemed to her excited fancy, she had not been in the rooms more than an hour before a black domino in the costume of a minstrel of the Fifteenth Century approached her and begged for the honor of a promenade with the “beauteous Mary.”
Lady Edith, in the superb costume of the lovely Mary, Queen of Scots, and looking magnificently grand, bowed with queenly dignity, and placing her white-gloved hand on the minstrel’s arm, moved on with him among the throng of revelers.
Who was he, she wondered. His face was so shrouded in his mask that she could not guess his identity, and his voice sounded unfamiliar. Yet, as she leaned upon his arm a sweet sense of restfulness and peace crept over her such as she had never known before, and a quick thought of Guy Winthrop thrilled her, only to be dispelled with a shuddering sigh at the memory of Nurse Katherine’s warning.
“You tremble,” murmured her stately companion, in deep musical tones. “What earthly emotion can have power to disturb the serenity of a crowned forehead?”
“A woman’s heart is the same, whether born to the russet or the purple,” she answered lowly, and almost, it seemed to her, without volition of her own.
“I should like to believe it,” the minstrel answered, simply.
The queen asked lightly:
“Have any of my fair subjects given you cause to doubt my assertion? If so, you have but to speak—and I punish!”
“‘He jests at scars who never felt a wound.’”
“‘He jests at scars who never felt a wound.’”
“‘He jests at scars who never felt a wound.’”
“‘He jests at scars who never felt a wound.’”
“You have no proof that your assertion applies to me,” the queen replied tremblingly.
“Your pardon, my liege, but:
“‘Your heart is a snowdrift where foot never trod,Love’s sun has not wakened a bud on its sod.’”
“‘Your heart is a snowdrift where foot never trod,Love’s sun has not wakened a bud on its sod.’”
“‘Your heart is a snowdrift where foot never trod,Love’s sun has not wakened a bud on its sod.’”
“‘Your heart is a snowdrift where foot never trod,
Love’s sun has not wakened a bud on its sod.’”
A laugh rippled sweetly over her lips, like the soft music of a little stream dashing over rocks and pebbles.
“How do you know that?” she queried.
“Because I know you! You are glorious as Mary, Queen of Scots, but not less lovely as Edith, Queen of Hearts!”
She gave a violent start, then, tossing her head, tried to rectify the unconscious admittal that he had penetrated her mask.
“I think you mistake,” she said lightly. “But you show me your secret ‘as a bird betrays its nest by striving to conceal it.’ So you love some cruel, fair maid whose name is Edith?”
“Edith!”—he repeated it after her, in almost a passion of pain, “I have never dared call her so—she is as far above me as yonder star.” He paused at an open window and lifted his hand to a glorious planet glittering in mid heaven. “Ah, Mary, ah, my queen! ‘Hadst thou been less than thou art!’”
“Guy Winthrop!” broke wildly from her parted lips.
“Your majesty!” he straightened his fine form, and made a deprecatory movement with his white hand. “It seems that we have mutually mistaken each other for a different person. But suppose—remember, I only say suppose—that you were really the Edith whom I love, and I the Guy you named—what do you think they would say to each other? For instance now, what would Guy say to Edith? What do you think he would say, I mean?”
A sudden daring spirit, inherent in the grand old Chilton blood, leaped to her lips, and before she could think twice, she had uttered these words:
“He would say, ‘Edith, my darling, I love you!’”
The arm she leaned on trembled with the fierce throb of his heart.
“And what would Edith say?” he asked her, in low, unsteady tones.
“What would you like her to say?”—coquettishly.
“I should like to have her say, ‘Guy, I love you, and am yours forever!’ But what do you think she would say?”
Low and tenderly she whispered:
“Guy, I love you, and am yours forever!”
At that moment a fine courtier pushed in between the pair.
“Your majesty, your fair hand was promised me for this dance,” he reminded her; and with a slight, imperial bow to the young minstrel, the Queen of Scots swept away on the arm of her partner.
And then a great horror of remorse struck coldly to her heart. Oh, what had she done? Betrayed her heart to the man who loved her so well, but whom to love in return was to doom to a cruel death. Oh, horror of horrors!
The lights danced before her, the ballroom whirled around in a fantastic measure, the sea of faces grew dim and faded. She gasped for air, threw up her arms with a feeling of suffocation, and fell back fainting. The handsome courtier caught her in his arms and bore her to the door.
“Give her to me. She ismine!” cried a passionate voice; and the strong arms of the minstrel took her forcibly from the other’s clasp. Presently, with a weary sigh, she drifted back to life.
“The dressing-room,” she murmured, and the minstrel’s arm was again at her service. He left her with her maid, and mingled, as before, with the crowd.
“A word with you, Sir Poet,” said a stern voice in his ear.
It was the jeweled courtier. His eyes burned balefully beneath his mask.
“You forcibly took Mary Stuart from my arms—an insult for which I demand instant satisfaction.”
Two fiery spirits confronted each other in the wide grounds the next moment, two swords leaped from their scabbards, and two men struck at each other with vengeful fury.
The silver moon looked down on a scene of strife and bloodshed, and presently on a still form bathed in gore, around which a crowd was gathering, shouting, gesticulating, uttering all sorts of frenzied cries, while some struck out in hot haste after the murderer who had thrown away his sword and rushed headlong from the scene of his dastardly crime.
Presently, through the moving throng of excited maskers rushed the form of a beautiful woman. She flung herself on her knees by the dead man and tore the shrouding mask from his face.
As the moonlight fell on the closed eyes and pallid, handsome face, the Queen of Scots uttered a cry of sharp despair.
“The curse, oh, God! the curse! It is I—it is I who have killed him!”
Some one lifted the swooning form away, some one else knelt there by the still form and felt for the heart.
“He is not dead,” proclaimed the authoritative voice of a physician. “Let a litter be brought immediately and we will carry him into the house.”
The ball broke up in confusion as the wounded man was taken into Lady Heathcote’s house, and a stream of carriages marked the departure of the guests. In one of them was the weeping Lady Edith, attended by her uncle, who was also her guardian.