crowning her midnight hair and crashing the warm whiteness of her noble neck, to observe the admiration in all eyes as they dwelt upon her—this was, indeed, enough of happiness.
“She is, as ever,” she murmured, “not so much a woman as a proud lovely goddess who has deigned to descend to earth. But my lord does not look like himself. He seems shrunk in the face and old, and his eyes have rings about them. I like not that. He is so kind a gentleman and so happy that his body should not fail him. I have marked that he has looked colourless for days, and Clorinda questioned him kindly on it, but he said he suffered naught.”
’Twas but a little later than she had thought this, that she remarked a gentleman step aside and stand quite near without observing her. Feeling that she had no testimony to her fancifulness, she found herself thinking in a vague fashion that he, too, had come there because he chose to be unobserved. ’Twould not have been so easy for him to retire as it had been for her smallness and insignificance to do so; and, indeed, she did not fancy that he meant to conceal himself, but merely to stand for a quiet moment a little apart from the crowd.
And as she looked up at him, wondering why this should be, she saw he was the noblest and most stately gentleman she had ever beheld.
She had never seen him before; he must either be a stranger or a rare visitor. As Clorinda was beyond a woman’s height, he was beyond a man’s.
He carried himself as kingly as she did nobly; he had a countenance of strong, manly beauty, and a deep tawny eye, thick-fringed and full of fire; orders glittered upon his breast, and he wore a fair periwig, which became him wondrously, and seemed to make his eye more deep and burning by its contrast.
Beside his strength and majesty of bearing the stripling beauty of John Oxon would have seemed slight and paltry, a thing for flippant women to trifle with.
Mistress Anne looked at him with an admiration somewhat like reverence, and as she did so a sudden thought rose to her mind, and even as it rose, she marked what his gaze rested on, and how it dwelt upon it, and knew that he had stepped apart to stand and gaze as she did—only with a man’s hid fervour—at her sister’s self.
’Twas as if suddenly a strange secret had been told her. She read it in his face, because he thought himself unobserved, and for a space had cast his mask aside. He stood and gazed as a man who, starving at soul, fed himself through his eyes, having no hope of other sustenance, or as a man weary with long carrying of a burden, for a space laid it down for rest and to gather power to go on. She heard him draw a deep sigh almost stifled in its birth, and there was that in his face which she felt it was unseemly that a stranger like herself should behold, himself unknowing of her near presence.
She gently rose from her corner, wondering if she could retire from her retreat without attracting his observation; but as she did so, chance caused him to withdraw himself a little farther within the shadow of the screen, and doing so, he beheld her.
Then his face changed; the mask of noble calmness, for a moment fallen, resumed itself, and he bowed before her with the reverence of a courtly gentleman, undisturbed by the unexpectedness of his recognition of her neighbourhood.
“Madam,” he said, “pardon my unconsciousness that you were near me. You would pass?” And he made way for her.
She curtseyed, asking his pardon with her dull, soft eyes.
“Sir,” she answered, “I but retired here for a moment’s rest from the throng and gaiety, to which I am unaccustomed. But chiefly I sat in retirement that I might watch—my sister.”
“Your sister, madam?” he said, as if the questioning echo were almost involuntary, and he bowed again in some apology.
“My Lady Dunstanwolde,” she replied. “I take such pleasure in her loveliness and in all that pertains to her, it is a happiness to me to but look on.”
Whatsoever the thing was in her loving mood which touched him and found echo in his own, he was so far moved that he answered to her with something less of ceremoniousness; remembering also, in truth, that she was a lady he had heard of, and recalling her relationship and name.
“It is then Mistress Anne Wildairs I am honoured by having speech with,” he said. “My Lady Dunstanwolde has spoken of you in my presence. I am my lord’s kinsman the Duke of Osmonde;” again bowing, and Anne curtseyed low once more.
Despite his greatness, she felt a kindness and grace in him which was not condescension, and which almost dispelled the timidity which, being part of her nature, so unduly beset her at all times when she addressed or was addressed by a stranger. John Oxon, bowing his bright curls, and seeming ever to mock with his smiles, had caused her to be overcome with shy awkwardness and blushes; but this man, who seemed as far above him in person and rank and mind as a god is above a graceful painted puppet, even appeared to give of his own noble strength to her poor weakness. He bore himself towards her with a courtly respect such as no human being had ever shown to her before. He besought her again to be seated in her nook, and stood before her conversing with such delicate sympathy with her mood as seemed to raise her to the pedestal on which stood less humble women. All those who passed before them he knew and could speak easily of. The high deeds of those who were statesmen, or men honoured at Court or in the field, he was familiar with; and of those who were beauties or notable gentlewomen he had always something courtly to say.
Her own worship of her sister she knew full well he understood, though he spoke of her but little.
“Well may you gaze at her,” he said. “So does all the world, and honours and adores.”
He proffered her at last his arm, and she, having strangely taken courage, let him lead her through the rooms and persuade her to some refreshment. Seeing her so wondrously emerge from her chrysalis, and under the protection of so distinguished a companion, all looked at her as she passed with curious amazement, and indeed Mistress Anne was all but overpowered by the reverence shown them as they made their way.
As they came again into the apartment wherein the host and hostess received their guests, Anne felt her escort pause, and looked up at him to see the meaning of his sudden hesitation. He was gazing intently, not at Clorinda, but at the Earl of Dunstanwolde.
“Madam,” he said, “pardon me that I seem to detain you, but—but I look at my kinsman. Madam,” with a sudden fear in his voice, “he is ailing—he sways as he stands. Let us go to him. Quickly! He falls!”
And, in sooth, at that very moment there arose a dismayed cry from the guests about them, and there was a surging movement; and as they pressed forward themselves through the throng, Anne saw Dunstanwolde no more above the people, for he had indeed fallen and lay outstretched and deathly on the floor.
’Twas but a few seconds before she and Osmonde were close enough to him to mark his fallen face and ghastly pallor, and a strange dew starting out upon his brow.
But ’twas his wife who knelt beside his prostrate body, waving all else aside with a great majestic gesture of her arm.
“Back! back!” she cried. “Air! air! and water! My lord! My dear lord!”
But he did not answer, or even stir, though she bent close to him and thrust her hand within his breast. And then the frightened guests beheld a strange but beautiful and loving thing, such as might have moved any heart to tenderness and wonder. This great beauty, this worshipped creature, put her arms beneath and about the helpless, awful body—for so its pallor and stillness indeed made it—and lifted it in their powerful whiteness as if it had been the body of a child, and so bore
