"My lord! . . ."

She had stepped away from him and was looking him fearlessly in the face, resolved to question and cross-question until she understood everything, when the door was suddenly opened and Mary Tudor appeared, escorted by some of her ladies, and accompanied by His Eminence the Spanish envoy.

It was the stroke of a relentless sword across the Gordian knot which she had sought to unravel. She had only just made up her mind to stake her all upon a final throw of the dice--an explanation with Wess.e.x. He was still completely deceived. She could see that what she already more than guessed he had not even begun to suspect. The idea of a gigantic misunderstanding had not yet entered his brain; she would have brought it before him, made him understand. . . . And fate suddenly said, No!

Fate, or that cruel hand which pulled the strings that brought all puppets forward on this momentous stage? The Cardinal had darted a quick, anxious look on Wess.e.x and then had smiled with satisfaction.

Ursula caught both look and smile, and also that sudden hardening of the Cardinal's clever face, and knew that her last chance had gone.

Wess.e.x had seemed relieved when the Queen entered, and Ursula knew that never again would she be allowed to see him alone, never again would she be able to speak to him undisturbed.

"Nothing flies more quickly than an illusion when it is on the wing!"

Nothing! . . . save happiness . . . when it begins to slip slowly away, and tired hands are too weak to retain it.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

A FORLORN HOPE

The Great Hall had quickly filled with ladies and gentlemen. Mary Tudor had rapidly approached the dais, holding out one gracious hand to Wess.e.x and vouchsafing but a cold, callous look to Ursula Glynde, who, like some young, wounded fawn, seemed to be standing at bay, facing this crowd of indifferent spectators who had literally come between her and her happiness.

It seemed as if Mary felt a cruel delight in bringing before the young girl's notice the hopelessness of her position, the irreparability of the breach which existed now between her and His Grace of Wess.e.x.

The Queen's jealous eyes had already noted the cold salutation with which Wess.e.x so readily left Ursula's side, in order to turn to the new-comers. His Grace was evidently glad to see the end of a painful interview, and Mary was too weak a woman not to rejoice at sight of the heartache which was expressed in Ursula's pallid face, and not to try to enhance the pain of the wound.

Therefore when Wess.e.x respectfully kissed her hand she kept him close beside her, whispering tender words which she hoped her rival might hear.

"It seems like a beautiful dream, my lord," she said gently, "to see you once more at our Court. The ugly nightmare is over, and I am almost happy."

"I humbly thank Your Majesty," replied the Duke. "My whole life can henceforth be spent in expressing my grat.i.tude for a graciousness, which I so little deserve."

"Nay! I pray you to put us to the test, my dear lord. My heart aches with the desire to grant your every whim."

"Then I beg of Your Majesty a command in France."

"You wish to leave me?" said Mary with tender reproach.

"I hope to save Calais for Your Majesty's crown."

"Ah, my lord! I have more need of friends just now than cities! Whilst you go to France your Queen will wed King Philip of Spain."

"I hope not, Your Majesty," he rejoined earnestly.

"The letter of acceptance for my royal master already bears Her Majesty's signature," here interposed the Cardinal blandly.

"Aye! I have pledged my royal word," added the Queen with a short sigh.

"His Eminence hath served us well and . . ."

She made an effort to steady her voice, and avoided meeting the anxious look which Wess.e.x had cast upon her.

"But we will not mar the happiness of this joyous day," she continued after a while, speaking with enforced cheerfulness. "My Lord High Steward here would desire our confirmation of the free pardon granted in honour of it, to all who were awaiting trial."

"If Your Majesty will deign to append the royal signature," said Lord Chandois, who was fingering a large doc.u.ment.

"With pleasure, my lord. Are there many awaiting trial?"

Lord Chandois spread the doc.u.ment out on the table, and Mary Tudor prepared to sign it.

"A dozen or so, Your Majesty," explained the Lord High Steward; "men and women accused of roguery, witchcraft, and vagabondage."

With a bold stroke of her pen Mary added her royal name to the declaration of a free pardon.

"Let them be set free," she said, while Lord Chandois once more took possession of the paper. "It is our royal desire that these poor louts should thank His Grace of Wess.e.x for their liberty, which they owe to him."

Once more she turned with her usual affectionate gentleness towards the Duke. Throughout this brief, seemingly indifferent scene, Ursula had stood by, like an image carved in stone.

Etiquette forbade her retirement until the Queen granted her leave, and Mary seemed desirous to keep her close at hand, as a contrast, perhaps, to the exuberant joy which prevailed among the other ladies and gentlemen there.

In the midst of all this merriment and gaiety, the hubbub of many voices, the pleasant laughter and lively banter, two silent figures stood out in strange contrast. Ursula, rigid, ghostlike in her white draperies, her young face expressive of hopeless despair and of deadly sorrow kept in check, lest indifferent eyes read its miserable tale; and Wess.e.x, moving like an automaton among his friends, answering at random, trying with all his might to keep his thoughts from straying, his eyes from wandering, towards that beautiful statue, which now seemed like an exquisite carven monument of his own vanished happiness.

No one took much notice of Ursula Glynde, she was the disgraced maid-of-honour, the fallen star, scarce worth beholding, and she was glad of this isolation, which the selfishness of her former friends created around her. She looked for the last time upon the pomp and pageant of this glittering Court life; her very soul yearned for the peace and seclusion of austere convent walls. For the last time too she looked upon the man on whom she had lavished all the tenderness of her romantic temperament, whom she had set up on a pedestal of chivalry from which she felt loath even now to dethrone him.

She could see that he suffered and that he did not understand. The misunderstanding, which nothing could clear up now, still made a veil of darkness before his eyes. Her tender heart ached for him, her soul went out to him amidst all these people who laughed and chatted around her.

For one brief moment their eyes met across a sea of indifferent faces--his lighted up with all the ardour of a never-fading pa.s.sionate love, and hers spoke to him an eternal farewell.

CHAPTER XL

POOR MIRRAB

A few moments later the whole gay and giddy throng, like a flight of brilliantly hued b.u.t.terflies, had fluttered out into the garden.

The wintry sun was bestowing its last cold kiss on the terraces and bosquets of the park. Beyond, the landscape--wrapped in a delicate haze of purple--was gently swooning in the arms of this November afternoon.

All bird-song was silent, save the harsh chirrup of aggressive sparrows and the occasional brisk note of an irrepressible robin.

Close by the fountain a strange, dull group moved about somewhat listlessly--men and women, a dozen or so, in faded or ragged worsted mantles, shoes through which the flesh appeared, and mud-stained, bedraggled hose. Truly a wondrous spectacle on the delicately gravelled paths of the regal residence! a remarkable picture against the majestic background of carefully trimmed hedges, or conventional, well-cared-for shrubberies.

They looked indifferently round them, these poor shreds of society--the happy recipients of unlooked-for royal bounty. There were all sorts and conditions of men and women here, from the wrinkly-visaged hag who plied a precarious trade in illicit goods, to the hardened, sullen lout who made of Her Majesty's prisons an habitual home. A vagrant too here and there--one boy, barely in his teens, with pinched, haggard features, on which starvation had already scribbled her ugly name; a young girl, with bold, dark eyes, and coa.r.s.e face masked with glaring cosmetics; and, far in the remote background, a huddled-up figure of a woman in tawdry finery, with a torn, bedraggled white dress ill concealing her naked shoulders, a few sc.r.a.ps of faded ivy-leaves still clinging to her bright-hued, matted hair.

They were astonished to find themselves here: made curious, senseless jokes about the marble basin, the trimmed shrubs, the fish in the ponds.

The whole thing was a puzzle, and poverty and hunger had dulled all joy in them. They had been told that by the Queen's desire and at His Grace of Wess.e.x' prayer, they were to be immune from punishment for their present offences, and a vague, dull wonder as to the meaning of this unexpected clemency filled their benighted souls. They were at liberty, inasmuch as no man-at-arms actually dogged their footsteps, but they felt the eyes of stern guardians, court lackeys, or park-keepers fixed unrelentingly upon them.