A Lady of Quality by Francis H. Burnett (page 4)

breast, this she saw. ‘Twas but a thing–a thing lying inert, its fair locks outspread, its eyes rolled upward till the blue was almost lost; a purple indentation on the right temple from which there oozed a tiny thread of blood.

* * *

“There will be a way,” she had said, and yet in her most mad despair, of this way she had never thought; though strange it had been, considering her lawless past, that she had not–never of this way–never! Notwithstanding which, in one frenzied moment in which she had known naught but her delirium, her loaded whip had found it for her–the way!

And yet it being so found, and she stood staring, seeing what she had done–seeing what had befallen–’twas as if the blow had been struck not at her own temple but at her heart–a great and heavy shock, which left her bloodless, and choked, and gasping.

“What! what!” she panted. “Nay! nay! nay!” and her eyes grew wide and wild.

She sank upon her knees, so shuddering that her teeth began to chatter. She pushed him and shook him by the shoulder.

“Stir!” she cried in a loud whisper. “Move thee! Why dost thou lie so? Stir!”

Yet he stirred not, but lay inert, only with his lips drawn back, showing his white teeth a little, as if her horrid agony made him begin to laugh. Shuddering, she drew slowly nearer, her eyes more awful than his own. Her hand crept shaking to his wrist and clutched it. There was naught astir–naught! It stole to his breast, and baring it, pressed close. That was still and moveless as his pulse; for life was ended, and a hundred mouldering years would not bring more of death.

“I have KILLED thee,” she breathed. “I have KILLED thee–though I meant it not–even hell itself doth know. Thou art a dead man–and this is the worst of all!”

His hand fell heavily from hers, and she still knelt staring, such a look coming into her face as throughout her life had never been there before–for ’twas the look of a creature who, being tortured, the worst at last being reached, begins to smile at Fate.

“I have killed him!” she said, in a low, awful voice; “and he lies here–and outside people walk, and know not. But HE knows–and I– and as he lies methinks he smiles–knowing what he has done!”

She crouched even lower still, the closer to behold him, and indeed it seemed his still face sneered as if defying her now to rid herself of him! ‘Twas as though he lay there mockingly content, saying, “Now that I lie here, ’tis for YOU–for YOU to move me.”

She rose and stood up rigid, and all the muscles of her limbs were drawn as though she were a creature stretched upon a rack; for the horror of this which had befallen her seemed to fill the place about her, and leave her no air to breathe nor light to see.

“Now!” she cried, “if I would give way–and go mad, as I could but do, for there is naught else left–if I would but give way, that which is I–and has lived but a poor score of years–would be done with for all time. All whirls before me. ‘Twas I who struck the blow–and I am a woman–and I could go raving–and cry out and call them in, and point to him, and tell them how ’twas done–all!–all!”

She choked, and clutched her bosom, holding its heaving down so fiercely that her nails bruised it through her habit’s cloth; for she felt that she had begun to rave already, and that the waves of such a tempest were arising as, if not quelled at their first swell, would sweep her from her feet and engulf her for ever.

“That–that!” she gasped–“nay–that I swear I will not do! There was always One who hated me–and doomed and hunted me from the hour I lay ‘neath my dead mother’s corpse, a new-born thing. I know not whom it was–or why–or how–but ’twas so! I was made evil, and cast helpless amid evil fates, and having done the things that were ordained, and there was no escape from, I was shown noble manhood and high honour, and taught to worship, as I worship now. An angel might so love and be made higher. And at the gate of heaven a devil grins at me and plucks me back, and taunts and mires me, and I fall- -on THIS!”

She stretched forth her arms in a great gesture, wherein it seemed that surely she defied earth and heaven.

“No hope–no mercy–naught but doom and hell,” she cried, “unless the thing that is tortured be the stronger. Now–unless Fate bray me small–the stronger I will be!”

She looked down at the thing before her. How its stone face sneered, and even in its sneering seemed to disregard her. She knelt by it again, her blood surging through her body, which had been cold, speaking as if she would force her voice to pierce its deadened ear.

“Ay, mock!” she said, setting her teeth, “thinking that I am conquered–yet am I not! ‘Twas an honest blow struck by a creature goaded past all thought! Ay, mock–and yet, but for one man’s sake, would I call in those outside and stand before them, crying: ‘Here is a villain whom I struck in madness–and he lies dead! I ask not mercy, but only justice.'”

She crouched still nearer, her breath and words coming hard and quick. ‘Twas indeed as if she spoke to a living man who heard–as if she answered what he had said.

“There would be men in England who would give it me,” she raved, whispering. “That would there, I swear! But there would be dullards and dastards who would not. He would give it–he! Ay, mock as thou wilt! But between his high honour and love and me thy carrion SHALL not come!”

By her great divan the dead man had fallen, and so near to it he lay that one arm was hidden by the draperies; and at this moment this she saw–before having seemed to see nothing but the death in his face. A thought came to her like a flame lit on a sudden, and springing high the instant the match struck the fuel it leaped from. It was a thought so daring and so strange that even she gasped once, being appalled, and her hands, stealing to her brow, clutched at the hair that grew there, feeling it seem to rise and stand erect.

“Is it madness to so dare?” she said hoarsely, and for an instant, shuddering, hid her eyes, but then uncovered and showed them burning. “Nay! not as I will dare it,” she said, “for it will make me steel. You fell well,” she said to the stone-faced thing, “and as you lie there, seem to tell me what to do, in your own despite. You would not have so helped me had you known. Now ’tis ‘twixt Fate and I–a human thing–who is but a hunted woman.”

She put her strong hand forth and thrust him–he was already stiffening–backward from the shoulder, there being no shrinking on her face as she felt his flesh yield beneath her touch, for she had passed the barrier lying between that which is mere life and that which is pitiless hell, and could feel naught that was human. A poor wild beast at bay, pressed on all sides by dogs, by huntsmen, by resistless weapons, by Nature’s pitiless self -glaring with bloodshot eyes, panting, with fangs bared in the savagery of its unfriended agony–might feel thus. ‘Tis but a hunted beast; but ’tis alone, and faces so the terror and anguish of death.

The thing gazing with its set sneer, and moving but stiffly, she put forth another hand upon its side and thrust it farther backward until it lay stretched beneath the great broad seat, its glazed and open eyes seeming to stare upward blankly at the low roof of its strange prison; she thrust it farther backward still, and letting the draperies fall, steadily and with care so rearranged them that all was safe and hid from sight.

“Until to-night,” she said, “You will lie well there. And then–and then–“

She picked up the long silken lock of hair which lay like a serpent at her feet, and threw it into the fire, watching it burn, as all hair burns, with slow hissing, and she watched it till ’twas gone.

Then she stood with her hands pressed upon her eyeballs and her brow, her thoughts moving in great leaps. Although it reeled, the brain which had worked for her ever, worked clear and strong, setting before her what was impending, arguing her case, showing her where dangers would arise, how she must provide against them, what she must defend and set at defiance. The power of will with which she had been endowed at birth, and which had but grown stronger by its exercise, was indeed to be compared to some great engine whose lever ’tis not nature should be placed in human hands; but on that lever her hand rested now, and to herself she vowed she would control it, since only thus might she be saved. The torture she had undergone for months, the warring of the evil past with the noble present, of that which was sweet and passionately loving woman with that which was all but devil, had strung her to a pitch so intense and high that on the falling of this unnatural and unforeseen blow she was left scarce a human thing. Looking back, she saw herself a creature doomed from birth; and here in one moment seemed to stand a force ranged in mad battle with the fate which had doomed her.

“‘Twas ordained that the blow should fall so,” she said, “and those who did it laugh–laugh at me.”

‘Twas but a moment, and her sharp breathing became even and regular as though at her command; her face composed itself, and she turned to the bell and rang it as with imperious haste.

When the lacquey entered, she was standing holding papers in her hand as if she had but just been consulting them.

“Follow Sir John Oxon,” she commanded. “Tell him I have forgot an important thing and beg him to return at once. Lose no time. He has but just left me and can scarce be out of sight.”

The fellow saw there was no time to lose. They all feared that imperial eye of hers and fled to obey its glances. Bowing, he turned, and hastened to do her bidding, fearing to admit that he had not seen the guest leave, because to do so would be to confess that he had been absent from his post, which was indeed the truth.

She knew he would come back shortly, and thus he did, entering somewhat breathed by his haste.

“My lady,” he said, “I went quickly to the street, and indeed to the corner of it, but Sir John was not within sight.”

“Fool, you were not swift enough!” she said angrily. “Wait, you must go to his lodgings with a note. The matter is of importance.”

She went to a table–’twas close to the divan, so close that if she had thrust forth her foot she could have touched what lay beneath it–and wrote hastily a few lines. They were to request That which was stiffening within three feet of her to return to her as quickly as possible that she might make inquiries of an important nature which she had forgotten at his departure.

“Take this to Sir John’s lodgings,” she said. “Let there be no loitering by the way. Deliver into his own hands, and bring back at once his answer.”

Then she was left alone again, and being so left, paced the room slowly, her gaze upon the floor.

“That was well done,” she said. “When he returns and has not found him, I will be angered, and send him again to wait.”

She stayed her pacing, and passed her hand across her face.

“‘Tis like a nightmare,” she said–“as if one dreamed, and choked, and panted, and would scream aloud, but could not. I cannot! I must not! Would that I might shriek, and dash myself upon the floor, and beat my head upon it until I lay–as HE does.”

She stood a moment, breathing fast, her eyes widening, that part of her which was weak woman for the moment putting her in parlous danger, realising the which she pressed her sides with hands that were of steel.

“Wait! wait!” she said to herself. “This is going mad. This is loosening hold, and being beaten by that One who hates me and laughs to see what I have come to.”

Naught but that unnatural engine of will could have held her within bounds and restrained the mounting female weakness that beset her; but this engine being stronger than all else, it beat her womanish and swooning terrors down.

“Through this one day I must live,” she said, “and plan, and guard each moment that doth pass. My face must tell no tale, my voice must hint none. He will be still–God knows he will be still enough.”

Upon the divan itself there had been lying a little dog; ’twas a King Charles’ spaniel, a delicate pampered thing, which attached itself to her, and was not easily driven away. Once during the last hour the fierce, ill-hushed voices had disturbed it, and it had given vent to a fretted bark, but being a luxurious little beast, it had soon curled up among its cushions and gone to sleep again. But as its mistress walked about muttering low words and ofttimes breathing sharp breaths, it became disturbed again. Perhaps through some instinct of which naught is known by human creatures, it felt the strange presence of a thing which roused it. It stirred, at first drowsily, and lifted its head and sniffed; then it stretched its limbs, and having done so, stood up, turning on its mistress a troubled eye, and this she saw and stopped to meet it. ‘Twas a strange look she bestowed upon it, a startled and fearful one; her thought drew the blood up to her cheek, but backward again it flowed when the little beast lifted its nose and gave a low but woeful howl. Twice it did this, and then jumped down, and standing before the edge of the couch, stood there sniffing.

There was no mistake, some instinct of which it knew not the meaning had set it on, and it would not be thrust back. In all beasts this strange thing has been remarked–that they know That which ends them all, and so revolt against it that they cannot be at rest so long as it is near them, but must roar, or whinny, or howl until ’tis out of the reach of their scent. And so ’twas plain this little beast knew and was afraid and restless. He would not let it be, but roved about, sniffing and whining, and not daring to thrust his head beneath the falling draperies, but growing more and yet more excited and terrified, until at last he stopped, raised head in air, and gave vent to a longer, louder, and more dolorous howl, and albeit to one with so strange and noticeable a sound that her heart turned over in her breast as she stooped and caught him in her grasp, and shuddered as she stood upright, holding him to her side, her hand over his mouth. But he would not be hushed, and struggled to get down as if indeed he would go mad unless he might get to the thing and rave at it.

“If I send thee from the room thou wilt come back, poor Frisk,” she said. “There will be no keeping thee away, and I have never ordered thee away before. Why couldst thou not keep still? Nay, ’twas not dog nature.”

That it was not so was plain by his struggles and the yelps but poorly stifled by her grasp.

She put her hand about his little neck, turning, in sooth, very pale.

“Thou too, poor little beast,” she said. “Thou too, who art so small a thing and never harmed me.”

When the lacquey came back he wore an air more timorous than before.

“Your ladyship,” he faltered, “Sir John had not yet reached his lodgings. His servant knew not when he might expect him.”

“In an hour go again and wait,” she commanded. “He must return ere long if he has not left town.”

And having said this, pointed to a little silken heap which lay outstretched limp upon the floor. “‘Tis poor Frisk, who has had some strange spasm, and fell, striking his head. He hath been ailing for days, and howled loudly but an hour ago. Take him away, poor beast.”

CHAPTER XVII–Wherein his Grace of Osmonde’s courier arrives from France

The stronghold of her security lay in the fact that her household so stood in awe of her, and that this room, which was one of the richest and most beautiful, though not the largest, in the mansion, all her servitors had learned to regard as a sort of sacred place in which none dared to set foot unless invited or commanded to enter. Within its four walls she read and wrote in the morning hours, no servant entering unless summoned by her; and the apartment seeming, as it were, a citadel, none approached without previous parley. In the afternoon the doors were thrown open, and she entertained there such visitors as came with less formality than statelier assemblages demanded. When she went out of it this morning to go to her chamber that her habit might be changed and her toilette made, she glanced about her with a steady countenance.

“Until the babblers flock in to chatter of the modes and playhouses,” she said, “all will be as quiet as the grave. Then I must stand near, and plan well, and be in such beauty and spirit that they will see naught but me.”

In the afternoon ’twas the fashion for those who had naught more serious in their hands than the killing of time to pay visits to each other’s houses, and drinking dishes of tea, to dispose of their neighbours’ characters, discuss the play-houses, the latest fashions in furbelows or commodes, and make love either lightly or with serious intent. One may be sure that at my Lady Dunstanwolde’s many dishes of Bohea were drunk, and many ogling glances and much witticism exchanged. There was in these days even a greater following about her than ever. A triumphant beauty on the verge of becoming a great duchess is not like to be neglected by her acquaintance, and thus her ladyship held assemblies both gay and brilliantly varied, which were the delight of the fashionable triflers of the day.

This afternoon they flocked in greater numbers than usual. The episode of the breaking of Devil, the unexpected return of his Grace of Osmonde, the preparations for the union, had given an extra stimulant to that interest in her ladyship which was ever great enough to need none. Thereunto was added the piquancy of the stories of the noticeable demeanour of Sir John Oxon, of what had seemed to be so plain a rebellion against his fate, and also of my lady’s open and cold displeasure at the manner of his bearing himself as a disappointed man who presumed to show anger against that to which he should gallantly have been resigned, as one who is conquered by the chance of war. Those who had beheld the two ride homeward together in the morning, were full of curiousness, and one and another, mentioning the matter, exchanged glances, speaking plainly of desire to know more of what had passed, and of hope that chance might throw the two together again in public, where more of interest might be gathered. It seemed indeed not unlikely that Sir John might appear among the tea-bibbers, and perchance ’twas for this lively reason that my lady’s room was this afternoon more than usually full of gay spirits and gossip-loving ones.

They found, however, only her ladyship’s self and her sister, Mistress Anne, who, of truth, did not often join her tea-parties, finding them so given up to fashionable chatter and worldly witticisms that she felt herself somewhat out of place. The world knew Mistress Anne but as a dull, plain gentlewoman, whom her more brilliant and fortunate sister gave gracious protection to, and none missed her when she was absent, or observed her greatly when she appeared upon the scene. To-day she was perchance more observed than usual, because her pallor was so great a contrast to her ladyship’s splendour of beauty and colour. The contrast between them was ever a great one; but this afternoon Mistress Anne’s always pale countenance seemed almost livid, there were rings of pain or illness round her eyes, and her features looked drawn and pinched. My Lady Dunstanwolde, clad in a great rich petticoat of crimson flowered satin, with wondrous yellow Mechlin for her ruffles, and with her glorious hair dressed like a tower, looked taller, more goddess-like and full of splendid fire than ever she had been before beheld, or so her visitors said to her and to each other; though, to tell the truth, this was no new story, she being one of those women having the curious power of inspiring the beholder with the feeling each time he encountered them that he had never before seen them in such beauty and bloom.

When she had come down the staircase from her chamber, Anne, who had been standing at the foot, had indeed started somewhat at the sight of her rich dress and brilliant hues.

“Why do you jump as if I were a ghost, Anne?” she asked. “Do I look like one? My looking-glass did not tell me so.”

“No,” said Anne; “you–are so–so crimson and splendid–and I–“

Her ladyship came swiftly down the stairs to her.

“You are not crimson and splendid,” she said. “‘Tis you who are a ghost. What is it?”

Anne let her soft, dull eyes rest upon her for a moment helplessly, and when she replied her voice sounded weak.

“I think–I am ill, sister,” she said. “I seem to tremble and feel faint.”

“Go then to bed and see the physician. You must be cared for,” said her ladyship. “In sooth, you look ill indeed.”

“Nay,” said Anne; “I beg you, sister, this afternoon let me be with you; it will sustain me. You are so strong–let me–“

She put out her hand as if to touch her, but it dropped at her side as though its strength was gone.

“But there will be many babbling people,” said her sister, with a curious look. “You do not like company, and these days my rooms are full. ‘Twill irk and tire you.”

“I care not for the people–I would be with you,” Anne said, in strange imploring. “I have a sick fancy that I am afraid to sit alone in my chamber. ‘Tis but weakness. Let me this afternoon be with you.”

“Go then and change your robe,” said Clorinda, “and put some red upon your cheeks. You may come if you will. You are a strange creature Anne.”

And thus saying, she passed into her apartment. As there are blows and pain which end in insensibility or delirium, so there are catastrophes and perils which are so great as to produce something near akin to these. As she had stood before her mirror in her chamber watching her reflection, while her woman attired her in her crimson flowered satin and builded up her stately head-dress, this other woman had felt that the hour when she could have shrieked and raved and betrayed herself had passed by, and left a deadness like a calm behind, as though horror had stunned all pain and yet left her senses clear. She forgot not the thing which lay staring upward blankly at the under part of the couch which hid it–the look of its fixed eyes, its outspread locks, and the purple indentation on the temple she saw as clearly as she had seen them in that first mad moment when she had stood staring downward at the thing itself; but the coursing of her blood was stilled, the gallop of her pulses, and that wild hysteric leaping of her heart into her throat, choking her and forcing her to gasp and pant in that way which in women must ever end in shrieks and cries and sobbing beatings of the air. But for the feminine softness to which her nature had given way for the first time, since the power of love had mastered her, there was no thing of earth could have happened to her which would have brought this rolling ball to her throat, this tremor to her body–since the hour of her birth she had never been attacked by such a female folly, as she would indeed have regarded it once; but now ’twas different–for a while she had been a woman–a woman who had flung herself upon the bosom of him who was her soul’s lord, and resting there, her old rigid strength had been relaxed.

But ’twas not this woman who had known tender yielding who returned to take her place in the Panelled Parlour, knowing of the companion who waited near her unseen–for it was as her companion she thought of him, as she had thought of him when he followed her in the Mall, forced himself into her box at the play, or stood by her shoulder at assemblies; he had placed himself by her side again, and would stay there until she could rid herself of him.

“After to-night he will be gone, if I act well my part,” she said, “and then may I live a freed woman.”

‘Twas always upon the divan she took her place when she received her visitors, who were accustomed to finding her enthroned there. This afternoon when she came into the room she paused for a space, and stood beside it, the parlour being yet empty. She felt her face grow a little cold, as if it paled, and her under-lip drew itself tight across her teeth.

“In a graveyard,” she said, “I have sat upon the stone ledge of a tomb, and beneath there was–worse than this, could I but have seen it. This is no more.”

When the Sir Humphreys and Lord Charleses, Lady Bettys and Mistress Lovelys were announced in flocks, fluttering and chattering, she rose from her old place to meet them, and was brilliant graciousness itself. She hearkened to their gossipings, and though ’twas not her way to join in them, she was this day witty in such way as robbed them of the dulness in which sometimes gossip ends. It was a varied company which gathered about her; but to each she gave his or her moment, and in that moment said that which they would afterwards remember. With those of the Court she talked royalty, the humours of her Majesty, the severities of her Grace of Marlborough; with statesmen she spoke with such intellect and discretion that they went away pondering on the good fortune which had befallen one man when it seemed that it was of such proportions as might have satisfied a dozen, for it seemed not fair to them that his Grace of Osmonde, having already rank, wealth, and fame, should have added to them a gift of such magnificence as this beauteous woman would bring; with beaux and wits she made dazzling jests; and to the beauties who desired their flatteries she gave praise so adroit that they were stimulated to plume their feathers afresh and cease to fear the rivalry of her loveliness.

And yet while she so bore herself, never once did she cease to feel the presence of that which, lying near, seemed to her racked soul as one who lay and listened with staring eyes which mocked; for there was a thought which would not leave her, which was, that it could hear, that it could see through the glazing on its blue orbs, and that knowing itself bound by the moveless irons of death and dumbness it impotently raged and cursed that it could not burst them and shriek out its vengeance, rolling forth among her worshippers at their feet and hers.

“But he CAN not,” she said, within her clenched teeth, again and again–“THAT he cannot.”

Once as she said this to herself she caught Anne’s eyes fixed helplessly upon her, it seeming to be as the poor woman had said, that her weakness caused her to desire to abide near her sister’s strength and draw support from it; for she had remained at my lady’s side closely since she had descended to the room, and now seemed to implore some protection for which she was too timid to openly make request.

“You are too weak to stay, Anne,” her ladyship said. “‘Twould be better that you should retire.”

“I am weak,” the poor thing answered, in low tones–“but not too weak to stay. I am always weak. Would that I were of your strength and courage. Let me sit down–sister– here.” She touched the divan’s cushions with a shaking hand, gazing upward wearily– perchance remembering that this place seemed ever a sort of throne none other than the hostess queen herself presumed to encroach upon.

“You are too meek, poor sister,” quoth Clorinda. “‘Tis not a chair of coronation or the woolsack of a judge. Sit! sit!–and let me call for wine!”

She spoke to a lacquey and bade him bring the drink, for even as she sank into her place Anne’s cheeks grew whiter.

When ’twas brought, her ladyship poured it forth and gave it to her sister with her own hand, obliging her to drink enough to bring her colour back. Having seen to this, she addressed the servant who had obeyed her order.

“Hath Jenfry returned from Sir John Oxon?” she demanded, in that clear, ringing voice of hers, whose music ever arrested those surrounding her, whether they were concerned in her speech or no; but now all felt sufficient interest to prick up ears and hearken to what was said.

“No, my lady,” the lacquey answered. “He said that you had bidden him to wait.”

“But not all day, poor fool,” she said, setting down Anne’s empty glass upon the salver. “Did he think I bade him stand about the door all night? Bring me his message when he comes.”

“‘Tis ever thus with these dull serving folk,” she said to those nearest her. “One cannot pay for wit with wages and livery. They can but obey the literal word. Sir John, leaving me in haste this morning, I forgot a question I would have asked, and sent a lacquey to recall him.”

Anne sat upright.

“Sister–I pray you–another glass of wine.”

My lady gave it to her at once, and she drained it eagerly.

“Was he overtaken?” said a curious matron, who wished not to see the subject closed.

“No,” quoth her ladyship, with a light laugh–“though he must have been in haste, for the man was sent after him in but a moment’s time. ‘Twas then I told the fellow to go later to his lodgings and deliver my message into Sir John’s own hand, whence it seems that he thinks that he must await him till he comes.”

Upon a table near there lay the loaded whip; for she had felt it bolder to let it lie there as if forgotten, because her pulse had sprung so at first sight of it when she came down, and she had so quailed before the desire to thrust it away, to hide it from her sight. “And that I quail before,” she had said, “I must have the will to face–or I am lost.” So she had let it stay.

A languishing beauty, with melting blue eyes and a pretty fashion of ever keeping before the world of her admirers her waxen delicacy, lifted the heavy thing in her frail white hand.

“How can your ladyship wield it?” she said. “It is so heavy for a woman–but your ladyship is–is not–“

“Not quite a woman,” said the beautiful creature, standing at her full great height, and smiling down at this blue and white piece of frailty with the flashing splendour of her eyes.

“Not quite a woman,” cried two wits at once. “A goddess rather–an Olympian goddess.”

The languisher could not endure comparisons which so seemed to disparage her ethereal charms. She lifted the weapon with a great effort, which showed the slimness of her delicate fair wrist and the sweet tracery of blue veins upon it.

“Nay,” she said lispingly, “it needs the muscle of a great man to lift it. I could not hold it–much less beat with it a horse.” And to show how coarse a strength was needed and how far her femininity lacked such vigour, she dropped it upon the floor–and it rolled beneath the edge of the divan.

“Now,” the thought shot through my lady’s brain, as a bolt shoots from the sky–“now–he LAUGHS!”

She had no time to stir–there were upon their knees three beaux at once, and each would sure have thrust his arm below the seat and rummaged, had not God saved her! Yes, ’twas of God she thought in that terrible mad second–God!–and only a mind that is not human could have told why.

For Anne–poor Mistress Anne–white-faced and shaking, was before them all, and with a strange adroitness stooped,–and thrust her hand below, and drawing the thing forth, held it up to view.

“‘Tis here,” she said, “and in sooth, sister, I wonder not at its falling–its weight is so great.”

Clorinda took it from her hand.

“I shall break no more beasts like Devil,” she said, “and for quieter ones it weighs too much; I shall lay it by.”

She crossed the room and laid it upon a shelf.

“It was ever heavy–but for Devil. ‘Tis done with,” she said; and there came back to her face–which for a second had lost hue–a flood of crimson so glowing, and a smile so strange, that those who looked and heard, said to themselves that ’twas the thought of Osmonde who had so changed her, which made her blush. But a few moments later they beheld the same glow mount again. A lacquey entered, bearing a salver on which lay two letters. One was a large one, sealed with a ducal coronet, and this she saw first, and took in her hand even before the man had time to speak.

“His Grace’s courier has arrived from France,” he said; “the package was ordered to be delivered at once.”

“It must be that his Grace returns earlier than we had hoped,” she said, and then the other missive caught her eye.

“‘Tis your ladyship’s own,” the lacquey explained somewhat anxiously. “‘Twas brought back, Sir John not having yet come home, and Jenfry having waited three hours.”

“‘Twas long enough,” quoth her ladyship. “‘Twill do to-morrow.”

She did not lay Osmonde’s letter aside, but kept it in her hand, and seeing that she waited for their retirement to read it, her guests began to make their farewells. One by one or in groups of twos and threes they left her, the men bowing low, and going away fretted by the memory of the picture she made–a tall and regal figure in her flowered crimson, her stateliness seeming relaxed and softened by the mere holding of the sealed missive in her hand. But the women were vaguely envious, not of Osmonde, but of her before whom there lay outspread as far as life’s horizon reached, a future of such perfect love and joy; for Gerald Mertoun had been marked by feminine eyes since his earliest youth, and had seemed to embody all that woman’s dreams or woman’s ambitions or her love could desire.

When the last was gone, Clorinda turned, tore her letter open, and held it hard to her lips. Before she read a word she kissed it passionately a score of times, paying no heed that Anne sate gazing at her; and having kissed it so, she fell to reading it, her cheeks warm with the glow of a sweet and splendid passion, her bosom rising and falling in a tempest of tender, fluttering breaths–and ’twas these words her eyes devoured

“If I should head this page I write to you ‘Goddess and Queen, and Empress of my deepest soul,’ what more should I be saying than ‘My Love’ and ‘My Clorinda,’ since these express all the soul of man could crave for or his body desire. The body and soul of me so long for thee, sweetheart, and sweetest beautiful woman that the hand of Nature ever fashioned for the joy of mortals, that I have had need to pray Heaven’s help to aid me to endure the passing of the days that lie between me and the hour which will make me the most strangely, rapturously, happy man, not in England, not in the world, but in all God’s universe. I must pray Heaven again, and indeed do and will, for humbleness which shall teach me to remember that I am not deity, but mere man–mere man–though I shall hold a goddess to my breast and gaze into eyes which are like deep pools of Paradise, and yet answer mine with the marvel of such love as none but such a soul could make a woman’s, and so fit to mate with man’s. In the heavy days when I was wont to gaze at you from afar with burning heart, my unceasing anguish was that even high honour itself could not subdue and conquer the thoughts which leaped within me even as my pulse leaped, and even as my pulse could not be stilled unless by death. And one that for ever haunted–ay, and taunted–me was the image of how your tall, beauteous body would yield itself to a strong man’s arm, and your noble head with its heavy tower of hair resting upon his shoulder–the centres of his very being would be thrilled and shaken by the uplifting of such melting eyes as surely man ne’er gazed within on earth before, and the ripe and scarlet bow of a mouth so beauteous and so sweet with womanhood. This beset me day and night, and with such torture that I feared betimes my brain might reel and I become a lost and ruined madman. And now–it is no more forbidden me to dwell upon it–nay, I lie waking at night, wooing the picture to me, and at times I rise from my dreams to kneel by my bedside and thank God that He hath given me at last what surely is my own!-for so it seems to me, my love, that each of us is but a part of the other, and that such forces of Nature rush to meet together in us, that Nature herself would cry out were we rent apart. If there were aught to rise like a ghost between us, if there were aught that could sunder us–noble soul, let us but swear that it shall weld us but the closer together, and that locked in each other’s arms its blows shall not even make our united strength to sway. Sweetest lady, your lovely lip will curve in smiles, and you will say, ‘He is mad with his joy–my Gerald’ (for never till my heart stops at its last beat and leaves me still, a dead man, cold upon my bed, can I forget the music of your speech when you spoke those words, ‘My Gerald! My Gerald.’) And indeed I crave your pardon, for a man so filled with rapture cannot be quite sane, and sometimes I wonder if I walk through the palace gardens like one who is drunk, so does my brain reel. But soon, my heavenly, noble love, my exile will be over, and this is in truth what my letter is to tell you, that in four days your lacqueys will throw open your doors to me and I shall enter, and being led to you, shall kneel at your feet and kiss the hem of your robe, and then rise standing to fold her who will so soon be my very wife to my throbbing breast.”

Back to her face had come all the softness which had been lost, the hard lines were gone, the tender curves had returned, her lashes looked as if they were moist. Anne, sitting rigidly and gazing at her, was afraid to speak, knowing that she was not for the time on earth, but that the sound of a voice would bring her back to it, and that ’twas well she should be away as long as she might.

She read the letter, not once, but thrice, dwelling upon every word, ’twas plain; and when she had reached the last one, turning back the pages and beginning again. When she looked up at last, ’twas with an almost wild little smile, for she had indeed for that one moment forgotten.

“Locked in each other’s arms,” she said–“locked in each other’s arms. My Gerald! My Gerald! ‘What surely is my own–my own’!”

Anne rose and came to her, laying her hand on her arm. She spoke in a voice low, hushed, and strained.

“Come away, sister,” she said, “for a little while–come away.”

CHAPTER XVIII–My Lady Dunstanwolde sits late alone and writes

That she must leave the Panelled Parlour at her usual hour, or attract attention by doing that to which her household was unaccustomed, she well knew, her manner of life being ever stately and ceremonious in its regularity. When she dined at home she and Anne partook of their repast together in the large dining-room, the table loaded with silver dishes and massive glittering glass, their powdered, gold-laced lacqueys in attendance, as though a score of guests had shared the meal with them. Since her lord’s death there had been nights when her ladyship had sat late writing letters and reading documents pertaining to her estates, the management of which, though in a measure controlled by stewards and attorneys, was not left to them, as the business of most great ladies is generally left to others. All papers were examined by her, all leases and agreements clearly understood before she signed them, and if there were aught unsatisfactory, both stewards and lawyers were called to her presence to explain.

“Never did I–or any other man–meet with such a head upon a woman’s shoulders,” her attorney said. And the head steward of Dunstanwolde and Helversly learned to quake at the sight of her bold handwriting upon the outside of a letter.

“Such a lady!” he said–“such a lady! Lie to her if you can; palter if you know how; try upon her the smallest honest shrewd trick, and see how it fares with you. Were it not that she is generous as she is piercing of eye, no man could serve her and make an honest living.”

She went to her chamber and was attired again sumptuously for dinner. Before she descended she dismissed her woman for a space on some errand, and when she was alone, drawing near to her mirror, gazed steadfastly within it at her face. When she had read Osmonde’s letter her cheeks had glowed; but when she had come back to earth, and as she had sat under her woman’s hands at her toilette, bit by bit the crimson had died out as she had thought of what was behind her and of what lay before. The thing was so stiffly rigid by this time, and its eyes still stared so. Never had she needed to put red upon her cheeks before, Nature having stained them with such richness of hue; but as no lady of the day was unprovided with her crimson, there was a little pot among her toilette ornaments which contained all that any emergency might require. She opened this small receptacle and took from it the red she for the first time was in want of.

“I must not wear a pale face, God knows,” she said, and rubbed the colour on her cheeks with boldness.

It would have seemed that she wore her finest crimson when she went forth full dressed from her apartment; little Nero grinned to see her, the lacqueys saying among themselves that his Grace’s courier had surely brought good news, and that they might expect his master soon. At the dinner-table ’twas Anne who was pale and ate but little, she having put no red upon her cheeks, and having no appetite for what was spread before her. She looked strangely as though she were withered and shrunken, and her face seemed even wrinkled. My lady had small leaning towards food, but she sent no food away untouched, forcing herself to eat, and letting not the talk flag–though it was indeed true that ’twas she herself who talked, Mistress Anne speaking rarely; but as it was always her way to be silent, and a listener rather than one who conversed, this was not greatly noticeable.

Her Ladyship of Dunstanwolde talked of her guests of the afternoon, and was charming and witty in her speech of them; she repeated the mots of the wits, and told some brilliant stories of certain modish ladies and gentlemen of fashion; she had things to say of statesmen and politics, and was sparkling indeed in speaking of the lovely languisher whose little wrist was too delicate and slender to support the loaded whip. While she talked, Mistress Anne’s soft, dull eyes were fixed upon her with a sort of wonder which had some of the quality of bewilderment; but this was no new thing either, for to the one woman the other was ever something to marvel at.

“It is because you are so quiet a mouse, Anne,” my lady said, with her dazzling smile, “that you seem never in the way; and yet I should miss you if I knew you were not within the house. When the duke takes me to Camylotte you must be with me even then. It is so great a house that in it I can find you a bower in which you can be happy even if you see us but little. ‘Tis a heavenly place I am told, and of great splendour and beauty. The park and flower- gardens are the envy of all England.”

“You–will be very happy, sister,” said Anne, “and–and like a queen.”

“Yes,” was her sister’s answer–“yes.” And ’twas spoken with a deep in-drawn breath.

After the repast was ended she went back to the Panelled Parlour.

“You may sit with me till bedtime if you desire, Anne,” she said; “but ’twill be but dull for you, as I go to sit at work. I have some documents of import to examine and much writing to do. I shall sit up late.” And upon this she turned to the lacquey holding open the door for her passing through. “If before half-past ten there comes a message from Sir John Oxon,” she gave order, “it must be brought to me at once; but later I must not be disturbed–it will keep until morning.”

Yet as she spoke there was before her as distinct a picture as ever of what lay waiting and gazing in the room to which she went.

Until twelve o’clock she sat at her table, a despatch box by her side, papers outspread before her. Within three feet of her was the divan, but she gave no glance to it, sitting writing, reading, and comparing documents. At twelve o’clock she rose and rang the bell.

“I shall be later than I thought,” she said. “I need none of you who are below stairs. Go you all to bed. Tell my woman that she also may lie down. I will ring when I come to my chamber and have need of her. There is yet no message from Sir John?”

“None, my lady,” the man answered.

He went away with a relieved countenance, as she made no comment. He knew that his fellows as well as himself would be pleased enough to be released from duty for the night. They were a pampered lot, and had no fancy for late hours when there were no great entertainments being held which pleased them and gave them chances to receive vails.

Mistress Anne sat in a large chair, huddled into a small heap, and looking colourless and shrunken. As she heard bolts being shot and bars put up for the closing of the house, she knew that her own dismissal was at hand. Doors were shut below stairs, and when all was done the silence of night reigned as it does in all households when those who work have gone to rest. ‘Twas a common thing enough, and yet this night there was one woman who felt the stillness so deep that it made her breathing seem a sound too loud.

“Go to bed, Anne,” she said. “You have stayed up too long.”

Anne arose from her chair and drew near to her.

“Sister,” said she, as she had said before, “let me stay.”

She was a poor weak creature, and so she looked with her pale insignificant face and dull eyes, a wisp of loose hair lying damp on her forehead. She seemed indeed too weak a thing to stand even for a moment in the way of what must be done this night, and ’twas almost irritating to be stopped by her.

“Nay,” said my Lady Dunstanwolde, her beautiful brow knitting as she looked at her. “Go to your chamber, Anne, and to sleep. I must do my work, and finish to-night what I have begun.”

“But–but–” Anne stammered, dominated again, and made afraid, as she ever was, by this strong nature, “in this work you must finish– is there not something I could do to–aid you–even in some small and poor way. Is there–naught?”

“Naught,” answered Clorinda, her form drawn to its great full height, her lustrous eyes darkening. “What should there be that you could understand?”

“Not some small thing–not some poor thing?” Anne said, her fingers nervously twisting each other, so borne down was she by her awful timorousness, for awful it was indeed when she saw clouds gather on her sister’s brow. “I have so loved you, sister–I have so loved you that my mind is quickened somehow at times, and I can understand more than would be thought–when I hope to serve you. Once you said–once you said–“

She knew not then nor ever afterwards how it came to pass that in that moment she found herself swept into her sister’s white arms and strained against her breast, wherein she felt the wild heart bounding; nor could she, not being given to subtle reasoning, have comprehended the almost fierce kiss on her cheek nor the hot drops that wet it.

“I said that I believed that if you saw me commit murder,” Clorinda cried, “you would love me still, and be my friend and comforter.”

“I would, I would!” cried Anne.

“And I believe your word, poor, faithful soul–I do believe it,” my lady said, and kissed her hard again, but the next instant set her free and laughed. “But you will not be put to the test,” she said, “for I have done none. And in two days’ time my Gerald will be here, and I shall be safe–saved and happy for evermore–for evermore. There, leave me! I would be alone and end my work.”

And she went back to her table and sat beside it, taking her pen to write, and Anne knew that she dare say no more, and turning, went slowly from the room, seeing for her last sight as she passed through the doorway, the erect and splendid figure at its task, the light from the candelabras shining upon the rubies round the snow- white neck and wreathed about the tower of raven hair like lines of crimson.

CHAPTER XIX–A piteous story is told, and the old cellars walled in

It is, indeed, strangely easy in the great world for a man to lose his importance, and from having been the target for all eyes and the subject of all conversation, to step from his place, or find it so taken by some rival that it would seem, judging from the general obliviousness to him, that he had never existed. But few years before no fashionable gathering would have been felt complete had it not been graced by the presence of the young and fascinating Lovelace, Sir John Oxon. Women favoured him, and men made themselves his boon companions; his wit was repeated; the fashion of his hair and the cut of his waistcoat copied. He was at first rich and gay enough to be courted and made a favourite; but when his fortune was squandered, and his marriage with the heiress came to naught, those qualities which were vicious and base in him were more easy to be seen. Besides, there came new male beauties and new dandies with greater resources and more of prudence, and these, beginning to set fashion, win ladies’ hearts, and make conquests, so drew the attention of the public mind that he was less noticeable, being only one of many, instead of ruling singly as it had seemed that by some strange chance he did at first. There were indeed so many stories told of his light ways, that their novelty being worn off and new ones still repeated, such persons as concerned themselves with matters of reputation either through conscience or policy, began to speak of him with less of warmth or leniency.

“‘Tis not well for a matron with daughters to marry and with sons to keep an eye to,” it was said, “to have in her household too often a young gentleman who has squandered his fortune in dice and drink and wild living, and who ’twas known was cast off by a reputable young lady of fortune.”

So there were fine ladies who began to avoid him, and those in power at Court and in the world who regarded him with lessening favour day by day! In truth, he had such debts, and his creditors pressed him so ceaselessly, that even had the world’s favour continued, his life must have changed its aspect greatly. His lodgings were no longer the most luxurious in the fashionable part of the town, his brocades and laces were no longer of the richest, nor his habit of the very latest and most modish cut; he had no more an equipage attracting every eye as he drove forth, nor a gentleman’s gentleman whose swagger and pomp outdid that of all others in his world. Soon after the breaking of his marriage with the heiress, his mother had died, and his relatives being few, and those of an order strictly averse to the habits of ill-provided and extravagant kinsmen, he had but few family ties. Other ties he had, ’twas true, but they were not such as were accounted legal or worthy of attention either by himself or those related to him.

So it befell that when my Lady Dunstanwolde’s lacquey could not find him at his lodgings, and as the days went past neither his landlady nor his creditors beheld him again, his absence from the scene was not considered unaccountable by them, nor did it attract the notice it would have done in times gone by.

“He hath made his way out of England to escape us,” said the angry tailors and mercers–who had besieged his door in vain for months, and who were now infuriated at the thought of their own easiness and the impudent gay airs which had befooled them. “A good four hundred pounds of mine hath he carried with him,” said one. “And two hundred of mine!” “And more of mine, since I am a poor man to whom a pound means twenty guineas!” “We are all robbed, and he has cheated the debtors’ prison, wherein, if we had not been fools, he would have been clapped six months ago.”

“Think ye he will not come back, gentlemen?” quavered his landlady. “God knows when I have seen a guinea of his money–but he was such a handsome, fine young nobleman, and had such a way with a poor body, and ever a smile and a chuck o’ the chin for my Jenny.”

“Look well after poor Jenny if he hath left her behind,” said the tailor.

He did not come back, indeed; and hearing the rumour that he had fled his creditors, the world of fashion received the news with small disturbance, all modish persons being at that time much engaged in discussion of the approaching nuptials of her ladyship of Dunstanwolde and the Duke of Osmonde. Close upon the discussions of the preparations came the nuptials themselves, and then all the town was agog, and had small leisure to think of other things. For those who were bidden to the ceremonials and attendant entertainments, there were rich habits and splendid robes to be prepared; and to those who had not been bidden, there were bitter disappointments and thwarted wishes to think of.

“Sir John Oxon has fled England to escape seeing and hearing it all,” was said.

“He has fled to escape something more painful than the spleen,” others answered. “He had reached his rope’s end, and finding that my Lady Dunstanwolde was not of a mind to lengthen it with her fortune, having taken a better man, and that his creditors would have no more patience, he showed them a light pair of heels.”

Before my Lady Dunstanwolde left her house she gave orders that it be set in order for closing for some time, having it on her mind that she should not soon return. It was, however, to be left in such condition that at any moment, should she wish to come to it, all could be made ready in two days’ time. To this end various repairs and changes she had planned were to be carried out as soon as she went away from it. Among other things was the closing with brickwork of the entrance to the passage leading to the unused cellars.

“‘Twill make the servants’ part more wholesome and less damp and draughty,” she said; “and if I should sell the place, will be to its advantage. ‘Twas a builder with little wit who planned such passages and black holes. In spite of all the lime spread there, they were ever mouldy and of evil odour.”

It was her command that there should be no time lost, and men were set at work, carrying bricks and mortar. It so chanced that one of them, going in through a back entrance with a hod over his shoulder, and being young and lively, found his eye caught by the countenance of a pretty, frightened-looking girl, who seemed to be loitering about watching, as if curious or anxious. Seeing her near each time he passed, and observing that she wished to speak, but was too timid, he addressed her –

“Would you know aught, mistress?” he said.

She drew nearer gratefully, and then he saw her eyes were red as if with weeping.

“Think you her ladyship would let a poor girl speak a word with her?” she said. “Think you I dare ask so much of a servant–or would they flout me and turn me from the door? Have you seen her? Does she look like a hard, shrewish lady?”

“That she does not, though all stand in awe of her,” he answered, pleased to talk with so pretty a creature. “I but caught a glimpse of her when she gave orders concerning the closing with brick of a passage-way below. She is a tall lady, and grand and stately, but she hath a soft pair of eyes as ever man would wish to look into, be he duke or ditcher.”

The tears began to run down the girl’s cheeks.

“Ay!” she said; “all men love her, they say. Many a poor girl’s sweetheart has been false through her–and I thought she was cruel and ill-natured. Know you the servants that wait on her? Would you dare to ask one for me, if he thinks she would deign to see a poor girl who would crave the favour to be allowed to speak to her of–of a gentleman she knows?”

“They are but lacqueys, and I would dare to ask what was in my mind,” he answered; “but she is near her wedding-day, and little as I know of brides’ ways, I am of the mind that she will not like to be troubled.”

“That I stand in fear of,” she said; “but, oh! I pray you, ask some one of them–a kindly one.”

The young man looked aside. “Luck is with you,” he said. “Here comes one now to air himself in the sun, having naught else to do. Here is a young woman who would speak with her ladyship,” he said to the strapping powdered fellow.

“She had best begone,” the lacquey answered, striding towards the applicant. “Think you my lady has time to receive traipsing wenches.”

“‘Twas only for a moment I asked,” the girl said. “I come from–I would speak to her of–of Sir John Oxon–whom she knows.”

The man’s face changed. It was Jenfry.

“Sir John Oxon,” he said. “Then I will ask her. Had you said any other name I would not have gone near her to-day.”

Her ladyship was in her new closet with Mistress Anne, and there the lacquey came to her to deliver his errand.

“A country-bred young woman, your ladyship,” he said, “comes from Sir John Oxon–“

“From Sir John Oxon!” cried Anne, starting in her chair.

My Lady Dunstanwolde made no start, but turned a steady countenance towards the door, looking into the lacquey’s face.

“Then he hath returned?” she said.

“Returned!” said Anne.

“After the morning he rode home with me,” my lady answered, “’twas said he went away. He left his lodgings without warning. It seems he hath come back. What does the woman want?” she ended.

“To speak with your ladyship,” replied the man, “of Sir John himself, she says.”

“Bring her to me,” her ladyship commanded.

The girl was brought in, overawed and trembling. She was a country- bred young creature, as the lacquey had said, being of the simple rose-and-white freshness of seventeen years perhaps, and having childish blue eyes and fair curling locks.

She was so frightened by the grandeur of her surroundings, and the splendid beauty of the lady who was so soon to be a duchess, and was already a great earl’s widow, that she could only stand within the doorway, curtseying and trembling, with tears welling in her eyes.

“Be not afraid,” said my Lady Dunstanwolde. “Come hither, child, and tell me what you want.” Indeed, she did not look a hard or shrewish lady; she spoke as gently as woman could, and a mildness so unexpected produced in the young creature such a revulsion of feeling that she made a few steps forward and fell upon her knees, weeping, and with uplifted hands.

“My lady,” she said, “I know not how I dared to come, but that I am so desperate–and your ladyship being so happy, it seemed–it seemed that you might pity me, who am so helpless and know not what to do.”

Her ladyship leaned forward in her chair, her elbow on her knee, her chin held in her hand, to gaze at her.

“You come from Sir John Oxon?” she said.

Anne, watching, clutched each arm of her chair.

“Not FROM him, asking your ladyship’s pardon,” said the child, “but- -but–from the country to him,” her head falling on her breast, “and I know not where he is.”

“You came TO him,” asked my lady. “Are you,” and her speech was pitiful and slow–“are you one of those whom he has–ruined?”

The little suppliant looked up with widening orbs.

“How could that be, and he so virtuous and pious a gentleman?” she faltered.

Then did my lady rise with a sudden movement.

“Was he so?” says she.

“Had he not been,” the child answered, “my mother would have been afraid to trust him. I am but a poor country widow’s daughter, but was well brought up, and honestly–and when he came to our village my mother was afraid, because he was a gentleman; but when she saw his piety, and how he went to church and sang the psalms and prayed for grace, she let me listen to him.”

“Did he go to church and sing and pray at first?” my lady asks.

“‘Twas in church he saw me, your ladyship,” she was answered. “He said ’twas his custom to go always when he came to a new place, and that often there he found the most heavenly faces, for ’twas piety and innocence that made a face like to an angel’s; and ’twas innocence and virtue stirred his heart to love, and not mere beauty which so fades.”

“Go on, innocent thing,” my lady said; and she turned aside to Anne, flashing from her eyes unseen a great blaze, and speaking in a low and hurried voice. “God’s house,” she said–“God’s prayers–God’s songs of praise–he used them all to break a tender heart, and bring an innocent life to ruin–and yet was he not struck dead?”

Anne hid her face and shuddered.

“He was a gentleman,” the poor young thing cried, sobbing–“and I no fit match for him, but that he loved me. ‘Tis said love makes all equal; and he said I was the sweetest, innocent young thing, and without me he could not live. And he told my mother that he was not rich or the fashion now, and had no modish friends or relations to flout any poor beauty he might choose to wed.”

“And he would marry you?” my lady’s voice broke in. “He said that he would marry you?”

“A thousand times, your ladyship, and so told my mother, but said I must come to town and be married at his lodgings, or ‘twould not be counted a marriage by law, he being a town gentleman, and I from the country.”

“And you came,” said Mistress Anne, down whose pale cheeks the tears were running–“you came at his command to follow him?”

“What day came you up to town?” demands my lady, breathless and leaning forward. “Went you to his lodgings, and stayed you there with him,–even for an hour?”

The poor child gazed at her, paling.

“He was not there!” she cried. “I came alone because he said all must be secret at first; and my heart beat so with joy, my lady, that when the woman of the house whereat he lodges let me in I scarce could speak. But she was a merry woman and good-natured, and only laughed and cheered me when she took me to his rooms, and I sate trembling.”

“What said she to you?” my lady asks, her breast heaving with her breath.

“That he was not yet in, but that he would sure come to such a young and pretty thing as I, and I must wait for him, for he would not forgive her if she let me go. And the while I waited there came a man in bands and cassock, but he had not a holy look, and late in the afternoon I heard him making jokes with the woman outside, and they both laughed in such an evil way that I was affrighted, and waiting till they had gone to another part of the house, stole away.”

“But he came not back that night–thank God!” my lady said–“he came not back.”

The girl rose from her knees, trembling, her hands clasped on her breast.

“Why should your ladyship thank God?” she says, pure drops falling from her eyes. “I am so humble, and had naught else but that great happiness, and it was taken away–and you thank God.”

Then drops fell from my lady’s eyes also, and she came forward and caught the child’s hand, and held it close and warm and strong, and yet with her full lip quivering.

“‘Twas not that your joy was taken away that I thanked God,” said she. “I am not cruel–God Himself knows that, and when He smites me ’twill not be for cruelty. I knew not what I said, and yet–tell me what did you then? Tell me?”

“I went to a poor house to lodge, having some little money he had given me,” the simple young thing answered. “‘Twas an honest house, though mean and comfortless. And the next day I went back to his lodgings to question, but he had not come, and I would not go in, though the woman tried to make me enter, saying, Sir John would surely return soon, as he had the day before rid with my Lady Dunstanwolde and been to her house; and ’twas plain he had meant to come to his lodgings, for her ladyship had sent her lacquey thrice with a message.”

The hand with which Mistress Anne sate covering her eyes began to shake. My lady’s own hand would have shaken had she not been so strong a creature.

“And he has not yet returned, then?” she asked. “You have not seen him?”

The girl shook her fair locks, weeping with piteous little sobs.

“He has not,” she cried, “and I know not what to do–and the great town seems full of evil men and wicked women. I know not which way to turn, for all plot wrong against me, and would drag me down to shamefulness–and back to my poor mother I cannot go.”

“Wherefore not, poor child?” my lady asked her.

“I have not been made an honest, wedded woman, and none would believe my story, and–and he might come back.”

“And if he came back?” said her ladyship.

At this question the girl slipped from her grasp and down upon her knees again, catching at her rich petticoat and holding it, her eyes searching the great lady’s in imploring piteousness, her own streaming.

“I love him,” she wept–“I love him so–I cannot leave the place where he might be. He was so beautiful and grand a gentleman, and, sure, he loved me better than all else–and I cannot thrust away from me that last night when he held me to his breast near our cottage door, and the nightingale sang in the roses, and he spake such words to me. I lie and sob all night on my hard pillow–I so long to see him and to hear his voice–and hearing he had been with you that last morning, I dared to come, praying that you might have heard him let drop some word that would tell me where he may be, for I cannot go away thinking he may come back longing for me–and I lose him and never see his face again. Oh! my lady, my lady, this place is so full of wickedness and fierce people–and dark kennels where crimes are done. I am affrighted for him, thinking he may have been struck some blow, and murdered, and hid away; and none will look for him but one who loves him–who loves him. Could it be so?–could it be? You know the town’s ways so well. I pray you, tell me–in God’s name I pray you!”

“God’s mercy!” Anne breathed, and from behind her hands came stifled sobbing. My Lady Dunstanwolde bent down, her colour dying.

“Nay, nay,” she said, “there has been no murder done–none! Hush, poor thing, hush thee. There is somewhat I must tell thee.”

She tried to raise her, but the child would not be raised, and clung to her rich robe, shaking as she knelt gazing upward.

“It is a bitter thing,” my lady said, and ’twas as if her own eyes were imploring. “God help you bear it–God help us all. He told me nothing of his journey. I knew not he was about to take it; but wheresoever he has travelled, ’twas best that he should go.”

“Nay! nay!” the girl cried out–“to leave me helpless. Nay! it could not be so. He loved me–loved me–as the great duke loves you!”

“He meant you evil,” said my lady, shuddering, “and evil he would have done you. He was a villain–a villain who meant to trick you. Had God struck him dead that day, ‘twould have been mercy to you. I knew him well.”

The young thing gave a bitter cry and fell swooning at her feet; and down upon her knees my lady went beside her, loosening her gown, and chafing her poor hands as though they two had been of sister blood.

“Call for hartshorn, Anne, and for water,” she said; “she will come out of her swooning, poor child, and if she is cared for kindly in time her pain will pass away. God be thanked she knows no pain that cannot pass! I will protect her–ay, that will I, as I will protect all he hath done wrong to and deserted.”

* * *

She was so strangely kind through the poor victim’s swoons and weeping that the very menials who were called to aid her went back to their hall wondering in their talk of the noble grandness of so great a lady, who on the very brink of her own joy could stoop to protect and comfort a creature so far beneath her, that to most ladies her sorrow and desertion would have been things which were too trivial to count; for ’twas guessed, and talked over with great freedom and much shrewdness, that this was a country victim of Sir John Oxon’s, and he having deserted his creditors, was read enough to desert his rustic beauty, finding her heavy on his hands.

Below stairs the men closing the entrance to the passage with brick, having caught snatches of the servants’ gossip, talked of what they heard among themselves as they did their work.

“Ay, a noble lady indeed,” they said. “For ’tis not a woman’s way to be kindly with the cast-off fancy of a man, even when she does not want him herself. He was her own worshipper for many a day, Sir John; and before she took the old earl ’twas said that for a space people believed she loved him. She was but fifteen and a high mettled beauty; and he as handsome as she, and had a blue eye that would melt any woman–but at sixteen he was a town rake, and such tricks as this one he hath played since he was a lad. ‘Tis well indeed for this poor thing her ladyship hath seen her. She hath promised to protect her, and sends her down to Dunstanwolde with her mother this very week. Would all fine ladies were of her kind. To hear such things of her puts a man in the humour to do her work well.”

CHAPTER XX–A noble marriage

When the duke came back from France, and to pay his first eager visit to his bride that was to be, her ladyship’s lacqueys led him not to the Panelled Parlour, but to a room which he had not entered before, it being one she had had the fancy to have remodelled and made into a beautiful closet for herself, her great wealth rendering it possible for her to accomplish changes without the loss of time the owners of limited purses are subjected to in the carrying out of plans. This room she had made as unlike the Panelled Parlour as two rooms would be unlike one another. Its panellings were white, its furnishings were bright and delicate, its draperies flowered with rosebuds tied in clusters with love-knots of pink and blue; it had a large bow-window, through which the sunlight streamed, and it was blooming with great rose-bowls overrunning with sweetness.

From a seat in the morning sunshine among the flowers and plants in the bow-window, there rose a tall figure in a snow-white robe–a figure like that of a beautiful stately girl who was half an angel. It was my lady, who came to him with blushing cheeks and radiant shining eyes, and was swept into his arms in such a passion of love and blessed tenderness as Heaven might have smiled to see.

“My love! my love!” he breathed. “My life! my life and soul!”

“My Gerald!” she cried. “My Gerald–let me say it on your breast a thousand times!”

“My wife!” he said–“so soon my wife and all my own until life’s end.”

“Nay, nay,” she cried, her cheek pressed to his own, “through all eternity, for Love’s life knows no end.”

As it had seemed to her poor lord who had died, so it seemed to this man who lived and so worshipped her–that the wonder of her sweetness was a thing to marvel at with passionate reverence. Being a man of greater mind and poetic imagination than Dunstanwolde, and being himself adored by her, as that poor gentleman had not had the good fortune to be, he had ten thousand-fold the power and reason to see the tender radiance of her. As she was taller than other women, so her love seemed higher and greater, and as free from any touch of earthly poverty of feeling as her beauty was from any flaw. In it there could be no doubt, no pride; it could be bounded by no limit, measured by no rule, its depths sounded by no plummet.

His very soul was touched by her great longing to give to him the feeling, and to feel herself, that from the hour that she had become his, her past life was a thing blotted out.

“I am a new created thing,” she said; “until you called me ‘Love’ I had no life! All before was darkness. ‘Twas you, my Gerald, who said, ‘Let there be light, and there was light.'”

“Hush, hush, sweet love,” he said. “Your words would make me too near God’s self.”

“Sure Love is God,” she cried, her hands upon his shoulders, her face uplifted. “What else? Love we know; Love we worship and kneel to; Love conquers us and gives us Heaven. Until I knew it, I believed naught. Now I kneel each night and pray, and pray, but to be pardoned and made worthy.”

Never before, it was true, had she knelt and prayed, but from this time no nun in her convent knelt oftener or prayed more ardently, and her prayer was ever that the past might be forgiven her, the future blessed, and she taught how to so live that there should be no faintest shadow in the years to come.

“I know not What is above me,” she said. “I cannot lie and say I love It and believe, but if there is aught, sure It must be a power which is great, else had the world not been so strange a thing, and I–and those who live in it–and if He made us, He must know He is to blame when He has made us weak or evil. And He must understand why we have been so made, and when we throw ourselves into the dust before Him, and pray for help and pardon, surely–surely He will lend an ear! We know naught, we have been told naught; we have but an old book which has been handed down through strange hands and strange tongues, and may be but poor history. We have so little, and we are threatened so; but for love’s sake I will pray the poor prayers we are given, and for love’s sake there is no dust too low for me to lie in while I plead.”

This was the strange truth–though ’twas not so strange if the world feared not to admit such things–that through her Gerald, who was but noble and high-souled man, she was led to bow before God’s throne as the humblest and holiest saint bows, though she had not learned belief and only had learned love.

“But life lasts so short a while,” she said to Osmonde. “It seems so short when it is spent in such joy as this; and when the day comes–for, oh! Gerald, my soul sees it already–when the day comes that I kneel by your bedside and see your eyes close, or you kneel by mine, it MUST be that the one who waits behind shall know the parting is not all.”

“It could not be all, beloved,” Osmonde said. “Love is sure, eternal.”

Often in these blissful hours her way was almost like a child’s, she was so tender and so clinging. At times her beauteous, great eyes were full of an imploring which made them seem soft with tears, and thus they were now as she looked up at him.

“I will do all I can,” she said. “I will obey every law, I will pray often and give alms, and strive to be dutiful and–holy, that in the end He will not thrust me from you; that I may stay near– even in the lowest place, even in the lowest–that I may see your face and know that you see mine. We are so in His power, He can do aught with us; but I will so obey Him and so pray that He will let me in.”

To Anne she went with curious humility, questioning her as to her religious duties and beliefs, asking her what books she read, and what services she attended.

“All your life you have been a religious woman,” she said. “I used to think it folly, but now–“

“But now–” said Anne.

“I know not what to think,” she answered. “I would learn.”

But when she listened to Anne’s simple homilies, and read her weighty sermons, they but made her restless and unsatisfied.

“Nay, ’tis not that,” she said one day, with a deep sigh. “‘Tis more than that; ’tis deeper, and greater, and your sermons do not hold it. They but set my brain to questioning and rebellion.”

But a short time elapsed before the marriage was solemnised, and such a wedding the world of fashion had not taken part in for years, ’twas said. Royalty honoured it; the greatest of the land were proud to count themselves among the guests; the retainers, messengers, and company of the two great houses were so numerous that in the west end of the town the streets wore indeed quite a festal air, with the passing to and fro of servants and gentlefolk with favours upon their arms.

‘Twas to the Tower of Camylott, the most beautiful and remote of the bridegroom’s several notable seats, that they removed their household, when the irksomeness of the extended ceremonies and entertainments were over–for these they were of too distinguished rank to curtail as lesser personages might have done. But when all things were over, the stately town houses closed, and their equipages rolled out beyond the sight of town into the country roads, the great duke and his great duchess sat hand in hand, gazing into each other’s eyes with as simple and ardent a joy as they had been but young ‘prentice and country maid, flying to hide from the world their love.

“There is no other woman who is so like a queen,” Osmonde said, with tenderest smiling. “And yet your eyes wear a look so young in these days that they are like a child’s. In all their beauty, I have never seen them so before.”

“It is because I am a new created thing, as I have told you, love,” she answered, and leaned towards him. “Do you not know I never was a child. I bring myself to you new born. Make of me then what a woman should be–to be beloved of husband and of God. Teach me, my Gerald. I am your child and servant.”

‘Twas ever thus, that her words when they were such as these were ended upon his breast as she was swept there by his impassioned arm. She was so goddess-like and beautiful a being, her life one strangely dominant and brilliant series of triumphs, and yet she came to him with such softness and humility of passion, that scarcely could he think himself a waking man.

“Surely,” he said, “it is a thing too wondrous and too full of joy’s splendour to be true.”

In the golden afternoon, when the sun was deepening and mellowing towards its setting, they and their retinue entered Camylott. The bells pealed from the grey belfry of the old church; the villagers came forth in clean smocks and Sunday cloaks of scarlet, and stood in the street and by the roadside curtseying and baring their heads with rustic cheers; little country girls with red cheeks threw posies before the horses’ feet, and into the equipage itself when they were of the bolder sort. Their chariot passed beneath archways of flowers and boughs, and from the battlements of the Tower of Camylott there floated a flag in the soft wind.

“God save your Graces,” the simple people cried. “God give your Graces joy and long life! Lord, what a beautiful pair they be. And though her Grace was said to be a proud lady, how sweetly she smiles at a poor body. God love ye, madam! Madam, God love ye!”

Her Grace of Osmonde leaned forward in her equipage and smiled at the people with the face of an angel.

“I will teach them to love me, Gerald,” she said. “I have not had love enough.”

“Has not all the world loved you?” he said.

“Nay,” she answered, “only you, and Dunstanwolde and Anne.”

Late at night they walked together on the broad terrace before the Tower. The blue-black vault of heaven above them was studded with myriads of God’s brilliants; below them was spread out the beauty of the land, the rolling plains, the soft low hills, the forests and moors folded and hidden in the swathing robe of the night; from the park and gardens floated upward the freshness of acres of thick sward and deep fern thicket, the fragrance of roses and a thousand flowers, the tender sighing of the wind through the huge oaks and beeches bordering the avenues, and reigning like kings over the seeming boundless grassy spaces.

As lovers have walked since the days of Eden they walked together, no longer duke and duchess, but man and woman–near to Paradise as human beings may draw until God breaks the chain binding them to earth; and, indeed, it would seem that such hours are given to the straining human soul that it may know that somewhere perfect joy must be, since sometimes the gates are for a moment opened that Heaven’s light may shine through, so that human eyes may catch glimpses of the white and golden glories within.

His arm held her, she leaned against him, their slow steps so harmonising the one with the other that they accorded with the harmony of music; the nightingales trilling and bubbling in the rose trees were not affrighted by the low murmur of their voices; perchance, this night they were so near to Nature that the barriers were o’erpassed, and they and the singers were akin.

“Oh! to be a woman,” Clorinda murmured. “To be a woman at last. All other things I have been, and have been called ‘Huntress,’ ‘Goddess,’ ‘Beauty,’ ‘Empress,’ ‘Conqueror,’–but never ‘Woman.’ And had our paths not crossed, I think I never could have known what ’twas to be one, for to be a woman one must close with the man who is one’s mate. It must not be that one looks down, or only pities or protects and guides; and only to a few a mate seems given. And I–Gerald, how dare I walk thus at your side and feel your heart so beat near mine, and know you love me, and so worship you–so worship you–“

She turned and threw herself upon his breast, which was so near.

“Oh, woman! woman!” he breathed, straining her close. “Oh, woman who is mine, though I am but man.”

“We are but one,” she said; “one breath, one soul, one thought, and one desire. Were it not so, I were not woman and your wife, nor you man and my soul’s lover as you are. If it were not so, we were still apart, though we were wedded a thousand times. Apart, what are we but like lopped-off limbs; welded together, we are–THIS.” And for a moment they spoke not, and a nightingale on the rose vine, clambering o’er the terrace’s balustrade, threw up its little head and sang as if to the myriads of golden stars. They stood and listened, hand in hand, her sweet breast rose and fell, her lovely face was lifted to the bespangled sky.

“Of all this,” she said, “I am a part, as I am a part of you. To- night, as the great earth throbs, and as the stars tremble, and as the wind sighs, so I, being woman, throb and am tremulous and sigh also. The earth lives for the sun, and through strange mysteries blooms forth each season with fruits and flowers; love is my sun, and through its sacredness I may bloom too, and be as noble as the earth and that it bears.”

CHAPTER XXI–An heir is born

In a fair tower whose windows looked out upon spreading woods, and rich lovely plains stretching to the freshness of the sea, Mistress Anne had her abode which her duchess sister had given to her for her own living in as she would. There she dwelt and prayed and looked on the new life which so beauteously unfolded itself before her day by day, as the leaves of a great tree unfold from buds and become noble branches, housing birds and their nests, shading the earth and those sheltering beneath them, braving centuries of storms.

To this simile her simple mind oft reverted, for indeed it seemed to her that naught more perfect and more noble in its high likeness to pure Nature and the fulfilling of God’s will than the passing days of these two lives could be.

“As the first two lived–Adam and Eve in their garden of Eden–they seem to me,” she used to say to her own heart; “but the Tree of Knowledge was not forbidden them, and it has taught them naught ignoble.”

As she had been wont to watch her sister from behind the ivy of her chamber windows, so she often watched her now, though there was no fear in her hiding, only tenderness, it being a pleasure to her full of wonder and reverence to see this beautiful and stately pair go lovingly and in high and gentle converse side by side, up and down the terrace, through the paths, among the beds of flowers, under the thick branched trees and over the sward’s softness.

“It is as if I saw Love’s self, and dwelt with it–the love God’s nature made,” she said, with gentle sighs.

For if these two had been great and beauteous before, it seemed in these days as if life and love glowed within them, and shone through their mere bodies as a radiant light shines through alabaster lamps. The strength of each was so the being of the other that no thought could take form in the brain of one without the other’s stirring with it.

“Neither of us dare be ignoble,” Osmonde said, “for ‘twould make poor and base the one who was not so in truth.”

“‘Twas not the way of my Lady Dunstanwolde to make a man feel that he stood in church,” a frivolous court wit once said, “but in sooth her Grace of Osmonde has a look in her lustrous eyes which accords not with scandalous stories and play-house jests.”

And true it was that when they went to town they carried with them the illumining of the pure fire which burned within their souls, and bore it all unknowing in the midst of the trivial or designing world, which knew not what it was that glowed about them, making things bright which had seemed dull, and revealing darkness where there had been brilliant glare.

They returned not to the house which had been my Lord of Dunstanwolde’s, but went to the duke’s own great mansion, and there lived splendidly and in hospitable state. Royalty honoured them, and all the wits came there, some of those gentlemen who writ verses and dedications being by no means averse to meeting noble lords and ladies, and finding in their loves and graces material which might be useful. ‘Twas not only Mr. Addison and Mr. Steele, Dr. Swift and Mr. Pope, who were made welcome in the stately rooms, but others who were more humble, not yet having won their spurs, and how these worshipped her Grace for the generous kindness which was not the fashion, until she set it, among great ladies, their odes and verses could scarce express.

“They are so poor,” she said to her husband. “They are so poor, and yet in their starved souls there is a thing which can less bear flouting than the dull content which rules in others. I know not whether ’tis a curse or a boon to be born so. ‘Tis a bitter thing when the bird that flutters in them has only little wings. All the more should those who are strong protect and comfort them.”

She comforted so many creatures. In strange parts of the town, where no other lady would have dared to go to give alms, it was rumoured that she went and did noble things privately. In dark kennels, where thieves hid and vagrants huddled, she carried her beauty and her stateliness, the which when they shone on the poor rogues and victims housed there seemed like the beams of the warm and golden sun.

Once in a filthy hovel in a black alley she came upon a poor girl dying of a loathsome ill, and as she stood by her bed of rags she heard in her delirium the uttering of one man’s name again and again, and when she questioned those about she found that the sufferer had been a little country wench enticed to town by this man for a plaything, and in a few weeks cast off to give birth to a child in the almshouse, and then go down to the depths of vice in the kennel.

“What is the name she says?” her Grace asked the hag nearest to her, and least maudlin with liquor. “I would be sure I heard it aright.”

“‘Tis the name of a gentleman, your ladyship may be sure,” the beldam answered; “’tis always the name of a gentleman. And this is one I know well, for I have heard more than one poor soul mumbling it and raving at him in her last hours. One there was, and I knew her, a pretty rosy thing in her country days, not sixteen, and distraught with love for him, and lay in the street by his door praying him to take her back when he threw her off, until the watch drove her away. And she was so mad with love and grief she killed her girl child when ’twas born i’ the kennel, sobbing and crying that it should not live to be like her and bear others. And she was condemned to death, and swung for it on Tyburn Tree. And, Lord! how she cried his name as she jolted on her coffin to the gallows, and when the hangman put the rope round her shuddering little fair neck. ‘Oh, John,’ screams she, ‘John Oxon, God forgive thee! Nay, ’tis God should be forgiven for letting thee to live and me to die like this.’ Aye, ’twas a bitter sight! She was so little and so young, and so affrighted. The hangman could scarce hold her. I was i’ the midst o’ the crowd and cried to her to strive to stand still, ‘twould be the sooner over. But that she could not. ‘Oh, John,’ she screams, ‘John Oxon, God forgive thee! Nay, ’tis God should be forgiven for letting thee to live and me to die like this!'”

Till the last hour of the poor creature who lay before her when she heard this thing, her Grace of Osmonde saw that she was tended, took her from her filthy hovel, putting her in a decent house and going to her day by day, until she received her last breath, holding her hand while the poor wench lay staring up at her beauteous face and her great deep eyes, whose lustrousness held such power to sustain, protect, and comfort.

“Be not afraid, poor soul,” she said, “be not afraid. I will stay near thee. Soon all will end in sleep, and if thou wakest, sure there will be Christ who died, and wipes all tears away. Hear me say it to thee for a prayer,” and she bent low and said it soft and clear into the deadening ear, “He wipes all tears away–He wipes all tears away.”

The great strength she had used in the old days to conquer and subdue, to win her will and to defend her way, seemed now a power but to protect the suffering and uphold the weak, and this she did, not alone in hovels but in the brilliant court and world of fashion, for there she found suffering and weakness also, all the more bitter and sorrowful since it dared not cry aloud. The grandeur of her beauty, the elevation of her rank, the splendour of her wealth would have made her a protector of great strength, but that which upheld all those who turned to her was that which dwelt within the high soul of her, the courage and power of love for all things human which bore upon itself, as if upon an eagle’s outspread wings, the woes dragging themselves broken and halting upon earth. The starving beggar in the kennel felt it, and, not knowing wherefore, drew a longer, deeper breath, as if of purer, more exalted air; the poor poet in his garret was fed by it, and having stood near or spoken to her, went back to his lair with lightening eyes and soul warmed to believe that the words his Muse might speak the world might stay to hear.

From the hour she stayed the last moments of John Oxon’s victim she set herself a work to do. None knew it but herself at first, and later Anne, for ’twas done privately. From the hag who had told her of the poor girl’s hanging upon Tyburn Tree, she learned things by close questioning, which to the old woman’s dull wit seemed but the curiousness of a great lady, and from others who stood too deep in awe of her to think of her as a mere human being, she gathered clues which led her far in the tracing of the evils following one wicked, heartless life. Where she could hear of man, woman, or child on whom John Oxon’s sins had fallen, or who had suffered wrong by him, there she went to help, to give light, to give comfort and encouragement. Strangely, as it seemed to them, and as if done by the hand of Heaven, the poor tradesmen he had robbed were paid their dues, youth he had led into evil ways was checked mysteriously and set in better paths; women he had dragged downward were given aid and chance of peace or happiness; children he had cast upon the world, unfathered, and with no prospect but the education of the gutter, and a life of crime, were cared for by a powerful unseen hand. The pretty country girl saved by his death, protected by her Grace, and living innocently at Dunstanwolde, memory being merciful to youth, forgot him, gained back her young roses, and learned to smile and hope as though he had been but a name.

“Since ’twas I who killed him,” said her Grace to her inward soul, “’tis I must live his life which I took from him, and making it better I may be forgiven–if there is One who dares to say to the poor thing He made, ‘I will not forgive.'”

Surely it was said there had never been lives so beautiful and noble as those the Duke of Osmonde and his lady lived as time went by. The Tower of Camylott, where they had spent the first months of their wedded life, they loved better than any other of their seats, and there they spent as much time as their duties of Court and State allowed them. It was indeed a splendid and beautiful estate, the stately tower being built upon an eminence, and there rolling out before it the most lovely land in England, moorland and hills, thick woods and broad meadows, the edge of the heather dipping to show the soft silver of the sea.

Here was this beauteous woman chatelaine and queen, wife of her husband as never before, he thought, had wife blessed and glorified the existence of mortal man. All her great beauty she gave to him in tender, joyous tribute; all her great gifts of mind and wit and grace it seemed she valued but as they were joys to him; in his stately households in town and country she reigned a lovely empress, adored and obeyed with reverence by every man or woman who served her and her lord. Among the people on his various estates she came and went a tender goddess of benevolence. When she appeared amid them in the first months of her wedded life, the humble souls regarded her with awe not unmixed with fear, having heard such wild stories of her youth at her father’s house, and of her proud state and bitter wit in the great London world when she had been my Lady Dunstanwolde; but when she came among them all else was forgotten in their wonder at her graciousness and noble way.

“To see her come into a poor body’s cottage, so tall and grand a lady, and with such a carriage as she hath,” they said, hobnobbing together in their talk of her, “looking as if a crown of gold should sit on her high black head, and then to hear her gentle speech and see the look in her eyes as if she was but a simple new-married girl, full of her joy, and her heart big with the wish that all other women should be as happy as herself, it is, forsooth, a beauteous sight to see.”

“Ay, and no hovel too poor for her, and no man or woman too sinful,” was said again.

“Heard ye how she found that poor wench of Haylits lying sobbing among the fern in the Tower woods, and stayed and knelt beside her to hear her trouble? The poor soul has gone to ruin at fourteen, and her father, finding her out, beat her and thrust her from his door, and her Grace coming through the wood at sunset–it being her way to walk about for mere pleasure as though she had no coach to ride in–the girl says she came through the golden glow as if she had been one of God’s angels–and she kneeled and took the poor wench in her arms–as strong as a man, Betty says, but as soft as a young mother–and she said to her things surely no mortal lady ever said before–that she knew naught of a surety of what God’s true will might be, or if His laws were those that have been made by man concerning marriage by priests saying common words, but that she surely knew of a man whose name was Christ, and He had taught love and helpfulness and pity, and for His sake, He having earned our trust in Him, whether He was God or man, because He hung and died in awful torture on the Cross–for His sake all of us must love and help and pity–‘I you, poor Betty,’ were her very words, ‘and you me.’ And then she went to the girl’s father and mother, and so talked to them that she brought them to weeping, and begging Betty to come home; and also she went to her sweetheart, Tom Beck, and made so tender a story to him of the poor pretty wench whose love for him had brought her to such trouble, that she stirred him up to falling in love again, which is not man’s way at such times, and in a week’s time he and Betty went to church together, her Grace setting them up in a cottage on the estate.”

“I used all my wit and all my tenderest words to make a picture that would fire and touch him, Gerald,” her Grace said, sitting at her husband’s side, in a great window, from which they often watched the sunset in the valley spread below; “and that with which I am so strong sometimes–I know not what to call it, but ’tis a power people bend to, that I know–that I used upon him to waken his dull soul and brain. Whose fault is it that they are dull? Poor lout, he was born so, as I was born strong and passionate, and as you were born noble and pure and high. I led his mind back to the past, when he had been made happy by the sight of Betty’s little smiling, blushing face, and when he had kissed her and made love in the hayfields. And this I said–though ’twas not a thing I have learned from any chaplain–that when ’twas said he should make an honest woman of her, it was MY thought that she had been honest from the first, being too honest to know that the world was not so, and that even the man a woman loved with all her soul, might be a rogue, and have no honesty in him. And at last–’twas when I talked to him about the child–and that I put my whole soul’s strength in–he burst out a-crying like a schoolboy, and said indeed she was a fond little thing and had loved him, and he had loved her, and ’twas a shame he had so done by her, and he had not meant it at the first, but she was so simple, and he had been a villain, but if he married her now, he would be called a fool, and laughed at for his pains. Then was I angry, Gerald, and felt my eyes flash, and I stood up tall and spoke fiercely: ‘Let them dare,’ I said–‘let any man or woman dare, and then will they see what his Grace will say.'”

Osmonde drew her to his breast, laughing into her lovely eyes.

“Nay, ’tis not his Grace who need be called on,” he said; “’tis her Grace they love and fear, and will obey; though ’tis the sweetest, womanish thing that you should call on me when you are power itself, and can so rule all creatures you come near.”

“Nay,” she said, with softly pleading face, “let me not rule. Rule for me, or but help me; I so long to say your name that they may know I speak but as your wife.”

“Who is myself,” he answered–“my very self.”

“Ay,” she said, with a little nod of her head, “that I know–that I am yourself; and ’tis because of this that one of us cannot be proud with the other, for there is no other, there is only one. And I am wrong to say, ‘Let me not rule,’ for ’tis as if I said, ‘You must not rule.’ I meant surely, ‘God give me strength to be as noble in ruling as our love should make me.’ But just as one tree is a beech and one an oak, just as the grass stirs when the summer wind blows over it, so a woman is a woman, and ’tis her nature to find her joy in saying such words to the man who loves her, when she loves as I do. Her heart is so full that she must joy to say her husband’s name as that of one she cannot think without–who is her life as is her blood and her pulses beating. ‘Tis a joy to say your name, Gerald, as it will be a joy”–and she looked far out across the sun- goldened valley and plains, with a strange, heavenly sweet smile — “as it will be a joy to say our child’s–and put his little mouth to my full breast.”

“Sweet love,” he cried, drawing her by the hand that he might meet the radiance of her look–“heart’s dearest!”

She did not withhold her lovely eyes from him, but withdrew them from the sunset’s mist of gold, and the clouds piled as it were at the gates of heaven, and they seemed to bring back some of the far- off glory with them. Indeed, neither her smile nor she seemed at that moment to be things of earth. She held out her fair, noble arms, and he sprang to her, and so they stood, side beating against side.

“Yes, love,” she said–“yes, love–and I have prayed, my Gerald, that I may give you sons who shall be men like you. But when I give you women children, I shall pray with all my soul for them–that they may be just and strong and noble, and life begin for them as it began not for me.”

* * *

In the morning of a spring day when the cuckoos cried in the woods, and May blossomed thick, white and pink, in all the hedges, the bells in the grey church-steeple at Camylott rang out a joyous, jangling peal, telling all the village that the heir had been born at the Tower. Children stopped in their play to listen, men at their work in field and barn; good gossips ran out of their cottage door, wiping their arms dry, from their tubs and scrubbing-buckets, their honest red faces broadening into maternal grins.

“Ay, ’tis well over, that means surely,” one said to the other; “and a happy day has begun for the poor lady–though God knows she bore