CHAPTER III
HOME-COMING
It was a stormy summer evening as the brother and sister rode up betweenthe last long hills that led to Great Keynes. A south-west wind had beenrising all day, that same wind that was now driving the ruined Armada upinto the fierce North Sea, with the fiercer men behind to bar the return.But here, twenty miles inland, with the high south-downs to break thegale, the riders were in comparative quiet, though the great treesoverhead tossed their heavy rustling heads as the gusts struck them nowand again.
The party had turned off, as the dusk was falling, from the main-roadinto bridle-paths that they knew well, and were now approaching thevillage through the water meadows on the south-east side along a ridethat would bring them, round the village, direct to the Dower House. Inthe gloom Anthony could make out the tall reeds, and the loosestrife andwillowherb against them, that marked the course of the stream where hehad caught trout, as a boy; and against the western sky, as he turned inhis saddle, rose up the high windy hills where he had hawked with Hubertso many years before. It was a strange thought to him as he rode alongthat his very presence here in his own country was an act of high treasonby the law lately passed, and that every day he lived here must be a dayof danger.
For Isabel, too, it was strange to be riding up again towards thebattlefield of her desires--that battlefield where she had lived foryears in such childish faith and peace without a suspicion of the forcesthat were lurking beneath her own quiet nature. But to both of them thesense of home-coming was stronger than all else--that strange passion fora particular set of inanimate things--or, at the most, for an associationof ideas--that has no parallel in human emotions; and as they rode up thedarkening valley and the lights of the high windows of the Hall began toshow over the trees on their right, Anthony forgot his treason and Isabelher conflicts, and both felt a lump rise in the throat, and their heartsbegin to beat quicker with a strange pleasurable pulse, and to Isabel'seyes at least there rose up great tears of happiness and content; neitherdared speak, but both looked eagerly about at the pool where the Mayfliesused to dance, at the knoll where the pigeons nested, at the little lowbridge beneath which their inch-long boats used to slide sideways intodarkness, and the broad marshy flats where the gorgeous irises grew.
"How the trees have grown!" said Anthony at last, with an effort; "Icannot see the lights from the house."
"Mrs. Carroll will have made ready the first-floor rooms then, on thesouth."
"I am sorry they are not our own," said Anthony.
"Ah, look! there is the dovecote," cried Isabel.
They were passing up now behind the farm buildings; and directlyafterwards came round in front of the little walled garden to the west ofthe house.
There was a sudden exclamation from Anthony; and Isabel stared in silentdismay. The old house rose up before them with its rows of square windowsagainst the night sky, dark. There was not a glimmer anywhere; even Mrs.Carroll's own room on the south was dark. They reined their horses in andstood a moment.
"Oh, Anthony, Anthony!" cried Isabel suddenly, "what is it? Is there noone there?"
Anthony shook his head; and then put his tired beast to a shambling trotwith Isabel silent again with weariness and disappointment behind him.They passed along outside the low wall, turned the corner of the houseand drew up at the odd little doorway in the angle at the back of thehouse. The servants had drawn up behind them, and now pressed up to holdtheir horses; and the brother and sister slipped off and went towards thedoor. Anthony passed under the little open porch and put his hand out tothe door; it was quite dark underneath the porch, and he felt further andfurther, and yet there was no door; his foot struck the step. He felt hisway to the doorposts and groped for the door; but still there was none;he could feel the panelling of the lobby inside the doorway, and that wasall. He drew back, as one would draw back from a dead face on which onehad laid a hand in the dark.
"Oh, Anthony!" said Isabel again, "what is it?" She was still outside.
"Have you a light?" said Anthony hoarsely to the servants.
The man nearest him bent and fumbled in the saddle-bags, and after whatseemed an interminable while kindled a little bent taper and handed it tohim. As he went towards the porch shading it with his hand, Isabel sprangpast him and went before; and then, as the light fell through thedoorway, stopped in dead and bewildered silence.
The door was lying on the floor within, shattered and splintered.
Anthony stepped beside her, and she turned and clung to his arm, and asob or two made itself heard. Then they looked about them. The banistersabove them were smashed, and like a cataract, down the stairs lay aconfused heap of crockery, torn embroidery and clothes, books, and brokenfurniture.
Anthony's hand shook so much that the shadows of the broken banisterswaved on the wall above like thin exulting dancers.
Suddenly Anthony started.
"Mrs. Carroll," he exclaimed, and he darted upstairs past the ruins intoher two rooms halfway up the flight; and in a minute or two was back withIsabel.
"She has escaped," he said in a low voice; and then the two stood lookingabout them silently again. The door leading to the cellars on the leftwas broken too; and fragments of casks and bottles lay about the steps;the white wall was splashed with drink, and there was a smell of spiritsin the air. Evidently the stormers had thought themselves worthy of theirhire.
"Come," he said again; and leaving the entrance lobby, the two passed tothe hall-door and pushed that open and looked. There was the same furiousconfusion there; the tapestry was lying tumbled and rent on thefloor--the high oak mantelpiece was shattered, and doleful cracks andsplinters in the panelling all round showed how mad the attack had been;one of the pillars of the further archway was broken clean off, and thebrickwork showed behind; the pictures had been smashed and added to theheap of wrecked furniture and broken glass in the middle.
"Come," he said once more; and the two passed silently through the brokenarchway, and going up the other flight of stairs, gradually made theround of the house. Everywhere it was the same, except in the servants'attics, where, apparently, the mob had not thought it worth while to go.
Isabel's own room was the most pitiable of all; the windows had only theleaden frames left, and those bent and battered; the delicate panellingwas scarred and split by the shower of stones that had poured in throughthe window and that now lay in all parts of the room. A painting of hermother that had hung over her bed was now lying face downwards on thefloor. Isabel turned it over silently; a stone had gone through the face;and it had been apparently slit too by some sharp instrument. Even theslender oak bed was smashed in the centre, as if half a dozen men hadjumped upon it at once; and the little prie-dieu near the window had beendeliberately hacked in half. Isabel looked at it all with wide startledeyes and parted lips; and then suddenly sank down on the wrecked bedwhere she had hoped to sleep that night, and began to sob like a child.
"Ah! I did think--I did think----" she began.
Anthony stooped and tried to lift her.
"Come, my darling," he said, "is not this a high honour? _Qui relinquitdomos!_"
"Oh! why have they done it?" sobbed Isabel. "What harm have we donethem?" and she began to wail. She was thoroughly over-tired andover-wrought; and Anthony could not find it in his heart to blame her;but he spoke again bravely.
"We are Catholics," he said; "that is why they have done it. Do not throwaway this grace that our Lord has given us; embrace it and make ityours."
It was the priest that was speaking now; and Isabel turned her face andlooked at him; and then got up and hid her face on his shoulder.
"Oh, Anthony, help me!" she said; and so stood there, quiet.
* * * *
He came down presently to the servants, while Isabel went upstairs toprepare the rooms in the attics; for it was impossible for them to ridefurther that night; so they se
ttled to sleep there, and stable thehorses; and to ride on early the next day, and be out of the villagebefore the folks were about. Anthony gave directions to the servants, whowere Catholics too, and explained in a word or two what had happened; andbade them come up to the house as soon as they had fed and watered thebeasts; meanwhile he took the saddle-bags indoors and spread out theirremaining provisions in one of the downstairs rooms; and soon Isabeljoined him.
"I have made up five beds," she said, and her voice and lips were steady,and her eyes grave and serene again.
The five supped together in the wrecked kitchen, a fine room on the eastof the house, supported by a great oak pillar to which the horses ofguests were sometimes attached when the stable was full.
Isabel managed to make a fire and to boil some soup; but they hung thickcurtains across the shattered windows, and quenched the fire as soon asthe soup was made, for fear that either the light or the smoke from thechimney should arouse attention.
When supper was over, and the two men-servants and Isabel's French maidwere washing up in the scullery, Isabel suddenly turned to Anthony asthey sat together near the fireplace.
"I had forgotten," she said, "what we arranged as we rode up. I must goand tell her still."
Anthony looked at her steadily a moment.
"God keep you," he said.
She kissed him and took her riding-cloak, drew the hood over her head,and went out into the dark.
* * * *
It was with the keenest relief that, half an hour later, Anthony heardher footstep again in the red-tiled hall outside. The servants were goneupstairs by now, and the house was quiet. She came in, and sat by himagain and took his hand.
"Thank God I went," she said. "I have left her so happy."
"Tell me all," said Anthony.
"I went through the garden," said Isabel, "but came round to the front ofthe house so that they might not think I came from here. When the servantcame to the door--he was a stranger, and a Protestant no doubt--I said atonce that I brought news of Mr. Maxwell from Rye; and he took me straightin and asked me to come in while he fetched her woman. Then her womancame out and took me upstairs, up into Lady Maxwell's old room; and thereshe was lying in bed under the great canopy. Oh, Anthony, she is sopretty! her golden hair was lying out all over the pillow, and her faceis so sweet. She cried out when I came in, and lifted herself on herelbow; so I just said at once, 'He is safe and well'; and then she wentoff into sobs and laughter; so that I had to go and soothe her--her womanwas so foolish and helpless; and very soon she was quiet: and then shecalled me her darling, and she kissed me again and again; and told thewoman to go and leave us together; and then she lifted the sheet; andshowed me the face of a little child. Oh Anthony; Hubert's child andhers, the second, born on Tuesday--only think of that. 'Mercy, I wasgoing to call her,' she said, 'if I had not heard by to-morrow, but now Ishall call her Victory.'"
Anthony looked quickly at his sister, with a faint smile in his eyes.
"And what did you say?" he asked.
Isabel smiled outright; but her eyes were bright with tears too.
"'You have guessed,' she said. 'Yes,' I said, 'call her Mercy all thesame,' and she kissed me again, and cried, and said that she would. Andthen I told her all about Hubert; and about his little wound; and howwell he looked; and how all the fighting was most likely over; and whathis cabin looked like. And then she suddenly guessed who I was, and askedme; and I could not deny it, you know; but she promised not to tell. Thenshe told me all about the house here; and how she was afraid Hubert hadsaid something impatient about people who go to foreign parts and leavetheir country to be attacked, 'But you know he did not really mean it,'she said; and of course he did not. Well, the people had remembered that,and it spread and spread; and when the news of the Armada came last week,a mob came over from East Grinsted, and they sat drinking and drinking inthe village; and of course Grace could not go out to them; and all theold people are gone, and the Catholics on the estate--and so at last theyall came out roaring and shouting down the drive, and Mrs. Carroll waswarned and slipped out to the Hall; and she is now gone to Stanfield towait for us--and then the crowd broke into the house--but, oh Anthony,Grace was so sorry, and cried sore to think of us here; and asked us tocome and stay there; but of course I told her we could not: and then Isaid a prayer for her; and we kissed one another again; and then I cameaway."
Anthony looked at his sister, and there was honour and pride of her inhis eyes.
* * * *
The ride to Stanfield next day was a long affair, at a foot's-pace allthe way: the horses were thoroughly tired with their journey, and theywere obliged to start soon after three o'clock in the morning after avery insufficient rest; they did not reach Groombridge till nearly teno'clock, when they dined, and then rode on towards Tonbridge about noon.There were heavy hearts to be carried as well. The attempt to welcome themisery of their home-coming was a bitter effort; all the more bitter forthat it was an entirely unexpected call upon them. During those six yearsabroad probably not a day had passed without visions of Great Keynes, andthe pleasant and familiar rooms and garden of their own house, and mentalrehearsals of their return. The shock of the night before too had beenemphasised by the horror of the cold morning light creeping through theempty windows on to the cruel heaps within. The garden too, seen in thedim morning, with its trampled lawns and wrecked flower-beds heaped withwithered sunflowers, bell-blossoms and all the rich August growth, withthe earthen flower-bowls smashed, the stone balls on the gate overturned,and the laurels at the corner uprooted--all this was a horrible pain toIsabel, to whom the garden was very near as dear and familiar as her ownroom. So it was a silent and sorrowful ride; and Anthony's heart rose inrelief as at last up the grey village-street he saw the crowded roofs ofStanfield Place rise over the churchyard wall.
Their welcome from Mr. Buxton went far to compensate for all.
"My dear boy," he said, "or, my dear father, as I should call you inprivate, you do not know what happiness is mine to-day. It is a greatthing to have a priest again; but, if you will allow me to say so, it isa greater to have my friend--and what a sister you have upstairs!"
They were in Mr. Buxton's own little room on the ground-floor, and Isabelhad gone to rest until supper.
Anthony told him of the grim surprise that had awaited them at GreatKeynes. "So you must forgive my sister if she is a little sad."
"Yes, yes," said Mr. Buxton, "I had heard from Mrs. Carroll last nightwhen she arrived here. But there was no time to warn you. I had expectedyou to-day, though Mrs. Carroll did not."
(Anthony had sent a man straight from Rye to Stanfield.)
"But Mistress Isabel, as I shall venture to call her, must do what shecan with this house and garden. I need not say how wholly it is hers. AndI shall call you Anthony," he added--"in public, at least. And, forstrangers, you are just here as my guest; and you shall be calledCapell--a sound name; and you shall be Catholics too; though you are nopriest, of course, in public--and you have returned from the Continent. Ihold it is no use to lie when you can be found out. I do not know whatyour conscience is, Father Anthony; but, for myself, I count us Catholicsto be _in statu belli_ now; and therefore I shall lie frankly and fullywhen there is need; and you may do as you please. Old Mr. Blake used tobid me prevaricate instead; but that always seemed to me two lies insteadof one--one to the questioning party and the other to myself; and so Ialways said to him, but he would not have it so. I wondered he did nottell me that two negatives made an affirmative; but he was not cleverenough, the good father. So my own custom is to tell one plain lie whenneeded, and shame the devil."
It was pleasant to Anthony to hear his friend talk again, and he said so.His host's face softened into a great tenderness.
"Dear lad, I know what you mean. Please God you may find this a happyhome."
A couple of hours later, when Anthony and Isabel came d
own together fromtheir rooms in the old wing, they found Mr. Buxton in his black satin andlace in the beautiful withdrawing-room on the ground-floor. It wasalready past the supper-hour, but their host showed no signs of goinginto the hall. At last he apologised.
"I ask your pardon, Mistress Isabel; but I have a guest come to stay withme, who only arrived an hour ago; and she is a great lady and must haveher time. Ah! here she is."
The door was flung open and a radiant vision appeared. The door was alittle way off, and there were no candles near it; but there swelled andrustled into the room a figure all in blue and gold, with a whitedelicate ruff; and diamond buckles shone beneath the rich brocadedpetticoat. Above rose a white bosom and throat scintillating withdiamonds, and a flushed face with scarlet lips, all crowned by piles ofblack hair, with black dancing eyes beneath. Still a little in the shadowthis splendid figure swept down with a great curtsey, which Isabel met byanother, while the two gentlemen bowed low; and then, as the strangerswayed up again into the full light of the sconces, Anthony recognisedMary Corbet.
He stood irresolute with happy hesitation; and she came up smilingbrilliantly; and before he could stay her dropped down on one knee andtook his hand and kissed it; just as the man left the room.
"God bless you, Father Anthony!" she said; and as he looked at her, asshe glanced up, he could not tell whether her eyes shone with tears orlaughter.
"This is very charming and proper, Mistress Corbet, and like a truedaughter of the Church," put in Mr. Buxton, "but I shall be obliged toyou if you will not in future kiss priests' hands nor call them Father inthe presence of the servants--at least not in my house."
"Ah!" she said, "you were always prudent. Have you seen his secretdoors?" she went on to Anthony. "The entire Catholic Church might playhare and hounds with the Holy Father as huntsman and the Cardinals as thewhips, through Mr. Buxton's secret labyrinths."
"Wait until you are hare, and it is other than Holy Church that isa-hunting," said Mr. Buxton, "and you will thank God for my labyrinths,as you call them."
Then she greeted Isabel with great warmth.
"Why, my dear," she said, "you are not the little Puritan maiden anylonger. We must have a long talk to-night; and you shall tell meeverything."
"Mistress Mary is not so greatly changed," said Isabel, smiling. "Shealways would be told everything."
It was strange to Anthony to meet Mary again after so long, and to findher so little changed, as Isabel had said truly. He himself had passedthrough so much since they had last met at Greenwich over six yearsago--his conversion, his foreign sojourn, and, above all, the bewilderingand intoxicating sweetness of his ordination and priestly life. And yethe felt as close to Mary as ever, knit in a bond of wonderful goodfellowship and brotherhood such as he had never felt to any other in justthat kind and degree. He watched her, warm and content, as she talkedacross the polished oak and beneath the gleam of the candles; andlistened, charmed by her air and her talk.
"There is not so much news of her Grace," she said, "save that she isturning soldier in her old age. She rode out to Tilbury, you know, theother day, in steel cuirass and scarlet; out to see her dear Robin andthe army; and her royal face was all smiles and becks, and lord! how thesoldiers cheered! But if you had seen her as I did, in her room when shefirst buckled on her armour, and the joints did not fit--yes, and heardher! there were no smiles to spare then. She lodged at Mr. Rich's, youknow, two nights; but he would be Mr. Poor, I should suppose, by the timeher Grace left him; for he will not see the worth of a shoelace again ofall that he expended on her."
"You see," remarked Mr. Buxton to Isabel, "how fortunate we are in havingsuch a friend of her Grace's with us. We hear all the cream of the news,even though it be a trifle sour sometimes."
"A lover of her Grace," said Mary, "loves the truth about her, howeverbitter. But then I have no secret passages where I may hide from mysovereign!"
"The cream can scarce be but sour," said Anthony, "near her Grace: thereis so much thunder in the air."
"Yes, but the sun came out when you were there, Anthony," put in Isabel,smiling.
"But even the light of her glorious countenance is trying," said Mary."She is overpowering in thunder and sunshine alike."
"We have had enough of that metaphor," observed Mr. Buxton.
* * * *
Then Anthony had to talk, and tell all the foreign news of Douai and Romeand Cardinal Allen; and of Father Persons' scheme for a college atValladolid.
"Father Robert is a superb beggar--as he is superb in all things," saidMr. Buxton. "I dare not think how much he got from me for his college;and then I do not even approve of his college. His principles are toological for me. I have ever had a weakness for the _non sequitur_."
This led on to the Armada; Anthony told his experience of it; how he hadseen at least the sails of Lord Howard's squadron far away against thedawn; and this led on again to a sharp discussion when the servants hadleft the room.
"I do not know," said Mary at last; "it is difficult--is not the choicebetween God and Elizabeth? If I were a man, why should I not take up armsto defend my religion? Since I am a woman, why should I not pray forPhilip's success? It is a bitter hard choice, I know; but why need Iprefer my country to my faith? Tell me that, Father Anthony."
"I can only tell you my private opinion," said Anthony, "and that is,that both duties may be done. As Mr. Buxton here used to tell me, theduty to Caesar is as real as the duty to God. A man is bound to both; foreach has its proper bounds. When either oversteps them it must beresisted. When Elizabeth bids me deny my faith, I tell her I would soonerdie. When a priest bids me deny my country, I tell him I would sooner bedamned."
Mary clapped her hands.
"I like to hear a man talk like that," she cried. "But what of the HolyFather and his excommunication of her Grace?"
Anthony looked up at her sharply, and then smiled; Isabel watched himwith a troubled face.
"Aquinas holds," he said, "that an excommunication of sovereign andpeople in a lump is invalid. And until the Holy Father tells me himselfthat Aquinas is wrong, I shall continue to think he is right."
"God-a-mercy!" burst in Mr. Buxton, "what a to-do! Leave it alone untilthe choice must be made; and meanwhile say your prayers for Pope andQueen too, and hear mass and tell your beads and hold your tongue: thatis what I say to myself. Mistress Mary, I will not have my chaplainheckled; here is his lady sister all a-tremble between heresy andtreason."
They sat long over the supper-table, talking over the last six years andthe times generally. More than once Mary showed a strange bitternessagainst the Queen. At last Mr. Buxton showed his astonishment plainly.
"I do not understand you," he said. "I know that at heart you are loyal;and yet one might say you meditated her murder."
Mary's face grew white with passion and her eyes blazed.
"Ah!" she hissed, "you do not understand, you say? Then where is yourheart? But then you did not see Mary Stuart die."
Anthony looked at her, amazed.
"And you did, Mistress Mary?" he asked.
Mary bowed, with her lips set tight to check their trembling.
"I will tell you," she said, "if our host permits"; and she glanced athim.
"Then come this way," he said, and they rose from table.
They went back again to the withdrawing-room; a little cedar-fire hadbeen kindled under the wide chimney; and the room was full of dancingshadows. The great plaster-pendants, the roses, the crowns, and theportcullises on the ceiling seemed to waver in the firelight, for Mr.Buxton at a sign from Mary blew out the four tapers that were burning inthe sconces. They all sat down in the chairs that were set round thefire, Mary in a tall porter's chair with flaps that threw a shadow on herface when she leaned back; and she took a fan in her hand to keep thefire, or her friends' eyes, from her face should she need it.
She first told them very briefly of the last months of Mary's life, ofthe web th
at was spun round her by Walsingham's tactics, and her ownfriends' efforts, until it was difficult for her to stir hand or footwithout treason, real or pretended, being set in motion somewhere. Thenshe described how at Christmas '86 Elizabeth had sent her--MaryCorbet--as a Catholic, up to the Queen of the Scots at Fotheringay, on aprivate mission to attempt to win the prisoner's confidence, and topersuade her to confess to having been privy to Babington's conspiracy;and how the Scottish Queen had utterly denied it, even in the mostintimate conversations. Sentence had been already passed, but the warranthad not been signed; and it never would have been signed, said MistressCorbet, if Mary had owned to the crime of which she was accused.
"Ah! how they insulted her!" cried Mary Corbet indignantly. "She showedme one day the room where her throne had stood. Now the cloth of statehad been torn down by Sir Amyas Paulet's men, and he himself dared to sitwith his hat on his head in the sovereign's presence! The insolence ofthe hound! But the Queen showed me how she had hung a crucifix where herroyal arms used to hang. 'J'appelle,' she said to me, 'de la reine au roides rois.'"
Mistress Corbet went on to tell of the arrival of Walsingham'sbrother-in-law, Mr. Beale, with the death-warrant on that February Sundayevening.
"I saw his foxy face look sideways up at the windows as he got off hishorse in the courtyard; and I knew that our foes had triumphed. Then theother bloodhounds began to arrive; my lord of Kent on the Monday andShrewsbury on the Tuesday. Then they came in to us after dinner; and theytold her Grace it was to be for next day. I was behind her chair and sawher hand on the boss of the arm, and it did not stir nor clench; she saidit could not be. She could not believe it of Elizabeth.
"When she did at last believe it, there was no wild weeping or crying formercy; but she set her affairs in order, queenly, and yet sedately too.She first thought of her soul, and desired that M. de Preau might come toher and hear her confession; but they would not permit it. They offeredher Dr. Fletcher instead, 'a godly man,' as my lord of Kent called him.'Je ne m'en doute pas,' she said, smiling. But it was hard not to have apriest.
"Then she set her earthly affairs in order when she had examined her souland made confession to God without the Dean's assistance. We all suppedtogether when it was growing late; and I thought, Father Anthony--indeedI did--of another Supper long ago. Then M. Gorion was sent for to arrangesome messages and gifts; and until two of the clock in the morning wewatched with her or served her as she wrote and gave orders. The courtoutside was full of comings and goings. As I passed down the passage Isaw the torches of the visitors that were come to see the end; and once Iheard a hammering from the great hall. Then she went to her bed; and Ithink few lay as quiet as she in the castle that night. I was with herladies when they waked her before dawn; and it was hard to see that sweetface on the pillow open its eyes again to what was before her.
"Then when she was dressed I went in again, and we all went to theoratory, where she received our Saviour from the golden pyx which theHoly Father had sent her; for, you see, they would allow no priest tocome near her....
"Presently the gentlemen knocked. When we tried to follow we wereprevented; they wished her to die alone among her enemies; but at lasttwo of the ladies were allowed to go with her.
"I ran out another way, and sent a message to my Lord Shrewsbury, whoknew me at court. As I waited in the courtyard, the musicians there wereplaying 'The Witches' Dirge,' as is done at the burnings--and all to mockat my queen! At last a halberdier was sent to bring me in."
Mary Corbet was silent a moment or two and leaned back in her chair; andthe others dared not speak. The strange emotion of her voice and thestillness of that sparkling figure in the porter's chair affected themprofoundly. Her face was now completely shaded by a fan.
"It was in the hall, where a great fire was burning on the hearth. Thestage stood at the upper end; all was black. The crowd of gentlemenfilled the hall and all were still and reverent except--except a devilwho laughed as my queen came in, all in black. She was smiling and brave,and went up the steps and sat on her black throne and looked about her.The--the _things_ were just in front of her.
"Then the warrant was read by Beale, and I saw the lords glance at her asit ended; but there was nought but joyous hope in her face. She lookednow and again gently on the ivory crucifix in her hand, as she listened;and her lips moved to--to--Him who was delivered to death for her."
Mary Corbet gave one quick sob, and was silent again for an instant. Thenshe went on in a yet lower voice.
"Dr. Fletcher tried to address her, but he stammered and paused three orfour times; and the queen smiled on him and bade him not trouble himself,for that she lived and died a Catholic. But they would not let her be; soshe looked on her crucifix and was silent; and even then my lord of Kentbadgered her and told her Christ crucified in her hand would not saveher, except He was engraved on her heart.
"Then she knelt at her chair and tried to pray softly to herself; butFletcher would not have that, and prayed himself, aloud, and all thegentlemen in the hall began to pray aloud with him. But Mary prayed on inLatin and English aloud, and prevailed, for all were silent at the endbut she.
"And at last she kissed the crucifix and cried in a sweet piercing voice,'As thine arms, O Jesus, were spread upon the Cross, so receive me intoThy mercy and forgive me my sins!'"
Again Mistress Corbet was silent; and Anthony drew a long sobbing breathof pure pity, and Isabel was crying quietly to herself.
"When the headsmen offered to assist her," went on the low voice, "thequeen smiled at the gentlemen and said that she had never had such groomsbefore; and then they let the ladies come up. When they began to help herwith her dress I covered my face--I could not help it. There was such astillness now that I could hear her beads chink at her girdle. When Ilooked again, she was ready, with her sweet neck uncovered: all round herwas black but the headsman, who wore a white apron over his velvet, andshe, in her beauty, and oh! her face was so fair and delicate and hereyes so tender and joyous. And as her ladies looked at her, they sobbedpiteously. 'Ne criez vous,' said she.
"Then she knelt down, and Mistress Mowbray bound her eyes. She smiledagain under the handkerchief. 'Adieu,' she said, and then, 'Au revoir.'
"Then she said once more a Latin psalm, and then laid her head down, ason a pillow.
"'In manus tuas, Domine,' she said."
* * * *
Mary Corbet stopped, and leaned forward a little, putting her hand intoher bosom; Anthony looked at her as she drew up a thin silk cord with aruby ring attached to it.
"This was hers," she said simply, and held it out. Each of the Catholicstook it and kissed it reverently, and Mary replaced it.
"When they lifted her," she added, "a little dog sprang out from herclothes and yelped. And at that the man near me, who had laughed as shecame in, wept."
* * * *
Then the four sat silent in the firelight.