The lights had been put out, but the two enormous bays were open, letting in a flood of brilliant moonlight. The night was peculiarly balmy and sweet, and through the window could be seen the exquisite panorama of the gardens and terraces of Hampton Court, with the river beyond bathed in silvery light.

Wess.e.x had paused at the door, his eyes riveted on that distant picture, which recalled so vividly to his aching senses the poetic idyll of this afternoon.

It was strange that Don Miguel should be standing just where he was, between him and that vision so full of memories now.

Wess.e.x turned his eyes on the Marquis, who had not moved when he entered, and seemed absorbed in thought.

"And there is the man who before me has looked in Ursula's eyes," mused the Duke. "To think that I have a fancy for killing that young reprobate, because he happens to be more attractive than myself . . . or because . . ."

He suddenly tried to check his thoughts. They were beginning to riot in his brain. Until this very moment, when he saw the Spaniard standing before him, he had not realized how much he hated him. All that is primitive, pa.s.sionate, semi-savage in man rose in him at the sight of his rival. A wild desire seized him to grip that weakling by the throat, to make him quake and suffer, if only one thousandth part of the agony which had tortured him this past hour.

He deliberately crossed the room, then opened the door which led to his own apartments.

"Harry, old friend," he called to his dog, "go, wait for me within. I have no need for thy company just now."

The beautiful creature, with that peculiar unerring instinct of the faithful beast, seemed quite reluctant to obey. He stopped short, wagged his tail, indulged in all the tricks which he knew usually appealed to his master, begging in silent and pathetic language to be allowed to remain. But Wess.e.x was quite inexorable, and Harry Plantagenet had perforce to go.

The door closed upon the Duke's most devoted friend. In the meanwhile Don Miguel had evidently perceived His Grace, and now when Wess.e.x turned towards him he exclaimed half in surprise, half in tones of thinly veiled vexation--

"Ah! His Grace of Wess.e.x? Still astir, my lord, at this hour?"

"At your service, Marquis," rejoined the Duke coldly. "Has His Eminence gone to his apartments? . . . Can I do aught for you?"

"Nay, I thank Your Grace . . . I thought you too had retired," stammered the young man, now in visible embarra.s.sment. "I must confess I did not think to see you here."

"Whom did you expect to see, then?" queried Wess.e.x curtly.

"Nay! methought Your Grace had said that questions could not be indiscreet."

"Well?"

"Marry! . . . your question this time, my lord . . ."

"Was indiscreet?"

"Oh!" said the Spaniard deprecatingly.

"Which means that you expect a lady."

"Has Your Grace any objection to that?" queried Don Miguel with thinly veiled sarcasm.

"None at all," replied Wess.e.x, who felt his patience and self-control oozing away from him bit by bit. "I am not your guardian; yet, methinks, it ill becomes a guest of your rank to indulge in low amours beneath the roof of the Queen of England."

"Why should you call them low?" rejoined the Marquis, whose manner became more and more calm and bland, as Wess.e.x seemed to wax more violent. "You, of all men, my lord, should know that we, at Court, seek for pleasure where we are most like to find it."

"Aye! and in finding the pleasure oft lose our honour."

"Your Grace is severe."

"If my words offend you, sir, I am at your service."

"Is this a quarrel?"

"As you please."

"Your Grace . . ."

"Pardi, my lord Marquis," interrupted Wess.e.x haughtily and in tones of withering contempt, "I did not know that there were any cowards among the grandees of Spain."

"By Our Lady, Your Grace is going too far," retorted the Spaniard.

And with a quick gesture he unsheathed his sword.

Wess.e.x' eyes lighted up with the fire of satisfied desire. He knew now that this was what he had longed for ever since the young man's insolent laugh had first grated unpleasantly on his ear. For the moment all that was tender and poetic and n.o.ble in him was relegated to the very background of his soul. He was only a human creature who suffered and wished to be revenged, an animal who was wounded and was seeking to kill. He would have blushed to own that what he longed for now, above everything on earth, was the sight of that man's blood.

"Nay, my lord!" he said quietly, "are we children to give one another a pin-p.r.i.c.k or so?"

And having drawn his sword, he unsheathed his long Italian dagger, and holding it in his left hand he quickly wrapped his cloak around that arm.

"You are mad," protested Don Miguel with a frown, for a sword and dagger fight meant death to one man at least, and a mortal combat with one so desperate as Wess.e.x had not formed part of the programme so carefully arranged by the Cardinal de Moreno.

"By the Ma.s.s, man," was the Duke's calm answer, "art waiting to feel my glove on thy cheek?"

"As you will, then," retorted Don Miguel, reluctantly drawing his own dagger, "but I swear that this quarrel is none of my making."

"No! 'tis of mine! _en garde_!"

Don Miguel was pale to the lips. Not that he was a coward; he had fought more than one serious duel before now, and risked his life often enough for mere pastime or sport. But there was such a weird glitter in the eyes of this man, whom he and his chief had so wantonly wronged for the sake of their own political advancement, such a cold determination to kill, that, much against his will, the Spaniard felt an icy shiver running down his spine.

The room too! half in darkness, with only the strange, almost unreal brilliancy of the moon shedding a pallid light over one portion of the floor, that portion where one man was to die.

The Marquis de Suarez had been provoked; his was therefore the right of selecting his own position for the combat. In the case of such a peculiar illumination this was a great initial advantage.

The Spaniard, with his back towards the great open bay, had his antagonist before him in full light, whilst his own figure appeared only as a dark silhouette, elusive and intensely deceptive. Wess.e.x, however, seemed totally unconscious of the disadvantage of his own position. He was still dressed in the rich white satin doublet in which he had appeared at the banquet a few hours ago. The broad ribbon of the Garter, the delicate lace at the throat, the jewels which he wore, all would help in the brilliant light to guide his enemy's dagger towards his breast.

But he seemed only impatient to begin; the issue, one way or the other, mattered to him not at all. The Spaniard's death or his own was all that he desired:--perhaps his own now--for choice. He felt less bitter, less humiliated since he held his sword in his hand, and only vaguely recollected that Spaniards made a boast these days of carrying poisoned daggers in their belts.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE FIGHT

Whilst Don Miguel was preparing for the fight, a slight sound suddenly caused him to turn towards that side of the room, from whence a tall oaken door led to his own and the Cardinal's apartments. His eyes, rendered peculiarly keen by the imminence of his own danger, quickly perceived a thin fillet of artificial light running upwards from the floor, which at once suggested to him that the door was slightly ajar.

It had certainly been closed when Wess.e.x first entered the room. Behind it, as Don Miguel well knew, the Cardinal de Moreno had been watching; he was the great stage-manager of the drama which he had contrived should be enacted this night before His Grace. The young Marquis was only one of the chief actors; the princ.i.p.al actress being the wench Mirrab, who, surfeited with wine, impatient and violent, had been kept a close prisoner by His Eminence these last six hours past.