The Tangled Skein Part 33

But his "f.a.n.n.y!"--that white-clad, poetic embodiment of his most exalted dreams! Those guileless blue eyes--or were they black?--that childlike little head so fitly crowned with gold!

No! no! _that_ was his "f.a.n.n.y," not the other woman, whom the Queen was even now upbraiding for immodest conduct.

Now she was speaking . . . stammering . . . denying nothing. . . . Where was that Ursula Glynde? . . . the other woman . . . she who was false and wanton. . . . "f.a.n.n.y" was pure and sweet and girlish. . . . Ursula alone was to blame. Where was she?

"Has the Marquis de Suarez dared . . ."

It was her voice. Why did she name that man?

She knew him then? . . . had met him at East Molesey Fair? . . . she did not deny it . . . she only asked if he had dared . . . whilst the Spaniard had said, with a flippant shrug of the shoulders, that the acquaintanceship had ripened into . . . friendship.

Wess.e.x' whole soul rebelled at this suggestion. He had but one desire, to see her, to ask her--she would tell him the truth, and he would believe whatever she told him with those dear red lips of hers, which he had kissed.

He felt quite calm, still, firm in his faith, and sustained by his great love. He went to the door and found it locked.

A trifling matter surely, but why was it locked?

She had been upset, confused, ere the Queen had come. She would not allow him the great joy of proclaiming to all who were there to hear, that he had wooed and won her. Once more there came that torturing question: Why?

So averse was she to his appearing before the Queen, that she had locked the door for fear that the exuberant happiness which was in him, should cause him to precipitate a climax which she obviously dreaded.

Why? Why? Why?

But he would respect her wishes, and though his very sinews ached with the longing to break down that door, to see her then and there, not to endure for another second this maddening agony which made his temples throb and his brain reel, he made no attempt to touch the bolts again.

Just then there came the Queen's final words to her:

"The Marquis de Suarez has all the faults of his race. We warn you to cease this intercourse which doth no credit to your modesty."

And she--his love, his cherished dream--had said nothing in reply.

Wess.e.x strained his every sense to hear, but there came nothing save--

"Your Majesty . . ."

And then the peremptory--

"Silence, wench!" from irate Mary Tudor.

And then nothing more.

She had gone evidently, bearing her humiliation, leaving him in doubt and fear, to endure a torture of the soul which well-nigh unmanned him.

She must have known that he had heard, and yet she said nothing.

To the Duke of Wess.e.x, the most favoured man in England, the grand seigneur with one foot on the throne, the idea of suffering a false accusation in silence was a thing absolutely beyond comprehension--weakness which must have its origin in guilt.

Human nature is so const.i.tuted that man is bound to measure his fellow-creatures by his own standard; else why doth charity think no evil? The goodness and purity which comes from the soul is always mirrored in the soul of others. Evil sees evil everywhere. Pride does not understand humility.

Thus in Wess.e.x' heart!

Had his sovereign liege--that sovereign being a man--dared to put forth a base insinuation against him, he would have forgotten the kingship and struck the man, who impeached his honour, fearlessly in the face.

Nothing but conscious guilt would have stayed his avenging hand, or silenced the indignant words on his lips.

Of course he could not see what was actually pa.s.sing: he could but surmise, and a fevered, tortured brain is an uncertain counsellor.

He could not understand Ursula's att.i.tude. The girlish weakness, the submission to the highest authority in the land born of centuries of tradition, the maidenly bashfulness at the monstrosity of the accusation, were so many little feminine traits which at this moment appeared to him as so many admissions of guilt.

He would have loved them at other times: loved them in _her_ especially, because they were so characteristic of her simple nature, bred in the country, half woman and wholly child. Just now they were repellent to his pride, incomprehensible to his manhood, and for the first time his faith began to waver.

Pity him, my masters! for he suffered intensely.

Pity him, mistress, for he loved her with his whole soul.

Nay! do not sneer. Love-at-first-sight is a great and wonderful thing, and, more than that, it is real--genuinely, absolutely, completely real.

But it is not immutable. It is the basis, the solid foundation of what will become the lasting pa.s.sion. In itself it has one great weakness--the absence of knowledge.

Wess.e.x loved with his soul, but not yet with his reason. How could he?

Reason is always the last to fall into line with the other slaves of pa.s.sion. At present he worshipped in her that which he had conceived her to be, and the very sublimity of this whole-hearted love was a bar to the existence of perfect trust and faith.

There had been a long silence whilst Ursula mounted the stairs and finally disappeared, but the rustle of her silk skirt did not penetrate through the solid panels of the closet door. Wess.e.x did not know whether she had gone, or had been ordered to wait until Her Majesty had quitted the room. He wondered now how soon he would meet her, how she would look when she finally released him from this torture-chamber. He knew that he would not upbraid her, and feared but one awful eventuality, his own weakness if she were guilty.

Love such as his oft makes cowards of men.

To the Cardinal's poisoned shaft he paid but little heed. The weary soul had come to the end of its tether. It could not suffer more.

Beyond that lay madness or crime.

Silence became oppressive.

Then it seemed as if the key was being gently turned in the lock.

CHAPTER XXV

THE CARDINAL'S MOVE

His Eminence had been left all alone in the room after the pa.s.sage of Her Majesty to her own apartments.

"And now, what is the next move in this game of chess?" he mused, as he took the key of the closet door from his pocket and thoughtfully contemplated this tiny engine of his far-reaching and elaborate schemes.

"For the moment my guess was a shrewd one. His Grace of Wess.e.x is in there, and had I not locked that door he would have precipitated a climax, which had sent Queen Mary into a fever of jealous rage, and the Spanish amba.s.sador and myself back to Spain to-morrow."

He listened intently for a second or so; no sound came from the inner room. Then he glanced up towards the gallery.

There was, of course, no sign of Lady Ursula. Even if she intended anon to rejoin His Grace, she would certainly wait a little while ere she once more ventured to sally forth.