Читать книгу For the Blood Is the Life - Francis Marion Crawford - Страница 26

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It was late in the afternoon and Lady Brenda was seated alone upon the terrace of the Castello del Gaudio. A little table stood beside her, on which lay some writing materials and a couple of sealed letters, ready for the post. The rest of the party had gone upon a distant excursion on the water, but Lady Brenda had stayed at home to attend to her correspondence, which was one of her chief amusements and occupied much of her time. She had not ventured as yet to speak in her letters of the remarkable things which were occurring in her son-in-law's house. She was too much puzzled and at the same time too much interested as yet to explain to herself what happened. The strange thing, in her opinion, was that the apparitions did not strike her as supernatural, nor startle her so much as she would have supposed that ghosts should have done. There was an ease, a simplicity, and a perfect naturalness in their appearance and manner that disarmed prejudice and forbade fear. She wished to see more of them, and as she sat looking out over the water, while the freshness of the evening crept up to the terrace, her mind dwelt on the subject and she thought of the characters she would most like to see.

In history, Francis the First of France was one of her favourites. If she had a rather modern tendency to laugh at romance, she had also, far down in her nature, a profound admiration of romantic characters in the past. Francis appealed to her taste. His courage, his beauty, his adventures, his victories, his tournaments and his love-affairs pleased her, and she had often said that if she had her choice of an historical person whom she might meet, she would choose him. She thought so now, and it seemed so possible, in the light of what had already happened, that she spoke aloud as though of a living person.

"Yes," said she, " I would choose Francis the First. I wonder whether I could not send him an invitation by one of the others? "

Almost immediately, she was aware that some one was on the terrace. She looked round and she saw that she had her wish. The king was advancing slowly towards her, his velvet cap in his hand. She was not startled now, and she smiled when she thought how easily and quickly her wish had been realised. Whether it was a dream or not, she was determined to enjoy it, and this particular dream was very pleasant. She knew now how much she had really wished to see the man who stood before her.

Lady Brenda was somewhat surprised, and somewhat disappointed at the looks of her visitor. King Francis was undoubtedly imposing in appearance, of a fine presence and altogether a most noticeable man. He was taller than other men, broad-shouldered and straight-limbed, erect and evidently of great strength. His short, jet-black hair and pointed beard of the same hue set off his brilliant colouring and piercing black eyes; his forehead showed a good capacity of mind, and his strong nose argued ambition and personal courage. But there was in his manner and looks a lack of that refinement which especially characterised the other dead men Lady Brenda had known at Castello del Gaudio. He wore the dress of his time, as did each of the others—long hose of grey silk, with embroidered shoes, and a close-fitting doublet of maroon-coloured velvet, his only ornament being a heavy gold chain hung about his neck.

Lady Brenda rose to receive her royal guest, and studied the details of his face and dress, illuminated by the glow of the setting sun, and thrown into relief against the cold background of the grey hills. Francis made a courteous salute and motioned Lady Brenda to be seated, himself taking the vacant armchair by her side.

"It is so good of you to have asked me here," he said, fixing his eyes upon her and speaking in clear manly tones.

"It was most kind of your majesty to take pity on my solitude," answered the lady, smiling.

"I never allowed a lady to be alone when it was in my power to bear her company," returned Francis.

"No," said Lady Brenda, rather nervously. " Your majesty was always fond of women's society. How can you live without it? "

"I can hardly be said to live at all — though it seems that I am practically alive now, within the circle of your son-in-law's enchantments — I should say perhaps that I only live in your smiles. Existence in our circumstances is very monotonous."

"You were so fond of brilliant changes, too," suggested Lady Brenda.

" Change ! Ay — indeed I was. As a compensation I have not changed any clothes since the spring of 1547. That was three hundred and forty years ago. It is true that from what I have seen of more recent costumes I do not often regret the durability of my imperishable garments. As for the present fashions in the dress of ladies, something might be made of them by using respectable materials. I confess, however, I am surprised beyond measure at the stuffs you all wear — forgive my frankness — I seem to feel the affectation of too much simplicity in your appearance. Women as beautiful as you are could surely afford to dress better than women who are ugly."

"Your majesty is very flattering," said Lady Brenda, with a slight blush of pleasure. " But in regard to dress I beg to differ from you. It is much more the thing to be simple nowadays — one is much more respected. And for that matter, the ugly women could dress gorgeously, too."

"An ugly woman is ridiculous," said Francis. " The more she bedizens herself the more ridiculous she grows. But a beautiful woman can dress in cloth of gold and diamonds, and the richer her clothes, the more her beauty will shine."

"You loved to see beautiful women richly dressed— it is true. I have read of it in your majesty's life. But the times have changed since then. I imagine the sudden appearance of Madame d'Etampes, in full court dress — "

"Heaven forbid!" ejaculated Francis, crossing himself devoutly.

"I thought your majesty was much attached to her," said Lady Brenda, calmly.

" So I was — as the horse may be said to be much attached to the cart," answered the king. " I could not get rid of her. She drove me to distraction — but she drove me, nevertheless. There was nothing I could call my own, from the king's justice to the king's jewels. I verily believe that Anne did more harm than I did, which is saying something. The difference was that she did it with premeditation, whereas my evil deeds were chiefly of the lazy kind— sins of omission, perhaps of wrong conviction."

"Your majesty did not omit to burn alive a number of persons belonging to my religion," said Lady Brenda, stiffly.

"Madam," replied the king, "with your permission we will not discuss religious matters. I will only say that the Protestants with whom I had to do were Calvinists and that their church resembled yours about as nearly as a cellar resembles a court drawing-room — and I will take the liberty of pointing out that your Queen Elizabeth destroyed more Catholics than I ever destroyed Protestants, and that she did it in a more cruel way. I will not speak of my fickle friend Henry of England. His example adds too much weight to the argument. Madam, I would rather speak of Madame d'Etampes than of religious matters — but I would infinitely prefer to talk of neither."

"If your majesty will select a subject for conversation — " suggested Lady Brenda.

"Let us talk of yourself — "

" No — of yourself."

"Very well," said the king, leaning back in his easy chair which his broad shoulders overlapped on each side. " Let us talk of myself — though I suspect that means that you wish to talk of the women I loved. Does it not?"

"Their names are well known to history," said Lady Brenda.

"Better than their characters. I do not think people generally have any clear conception either of Madame de Chateaubriand, Madame d'Etampes or Madame de Breze — "

"Your majesty loved Madame de Breze?" inquired Lady Brenda, with sudden curiosity.

"Diane was a beautiful woman — she was four and twenty years of age when she came to beg for her father's life and I was but five years older. We were made for each other, and she was a wiser woman than Anne d'Etampes, as Catherine found out. I could have loved her, but I loved another — then. One whom I have long regretted."

" Francoise de Foix," said Lady Brenda in a low voice, for the king seemed moved.

" Yes — Madame de Chateaubriand. I can see her now with her fair gentle face, her golden hair, her soft blue eyes, her small graceful figure. Poor Francoise ! I can never forget her last look when she said good-bye in the garden. I thought little enough of it then and I called back Primaticcio as though nothing had happened. On my faith! It was very heartless ! I hardly know how I could do it. Had I known how she was to die I would not have done it — no ! on my faith as a gentleman ! I would not have done it."

"Indeed," said Lady Brenda, " it would have been better for France had you treated Madame de Chateaubriand less cruelly. She might have wearied you a little, but she would not have betrayed you to the emperor."

"It is easy, when once you are dead — or if you live three centuries after an event — to say that a deed was cruel. Living people who read history look at it much as a character of the time looks at it after his death — coldly. It is impossible for you to realise exactly how matters stood, nor what I felt. I was bored, my dear madam — do you understand ? Bored—"

"As most people are by what is too good for them," put in Lady Brenda.

"You are severe, but there is truth in what you say. I am only a dead king, after all, and I daresay I do not judge my own life much more leniently than you do, now that it is over. But pray reflect that when a woman bores a man, the case is serious indeed."

"Very," answered Lady Brenda, gravely. " It has recently been said, however, that only people who themselves are bores are bored by others. I mean no disrespect to your majesty; but I believe that if your majesty's mother, of blessed memory, had not conceived the idea of presenting to you Mademoiselle de Heilly, you would not have wearied poor Francoise as you did, till she began to weary you."

"Yes, madam," said the king. " It is also true that if the serpent had not talked of apples to our mother Eve, Paradise would have continued to be a terrestrial institution. But the serpent was a great busybody, and Eve liked apples."

" It seems to me that your majesty then plays the part of Eve," remarked Lady Brenda.

"Can you doubt that if the serpent had addressed himself to Adam instead of to his consort, he would have been equally successful ? "

"No," said Lady Brenda. The king laughed.

"It would be very singular if you did," he answered. "Madame d'Angouleme treated me with the politics of the serpent — and I must say in justice that a more beautiful apple was never selected by the devil himself. It amused me at the time. Unfortunately, when we are dead the heart begins to live."

"How strange!" exclaimed Lady Brenda. "I should have thought that it would be the reverse!"

"You would have supposed that after death the affections are wholly destroyed? No. That is not my experience. I was heartless in my lifetime. I treated Francoise abominably, and I made Anne de Heilly's miserable husband Due d'Etampes. I made Francoise return the jewels I had given her, because Anne wanted them. She broke all the monograms out of the settings before she sent them back, and I remember being glad that she did it. I knew that Anne was betraying me, and betraying France daily, and yet I let her power increase, because I disliked the annoyance of another separation — and during all that time Francoise was languishing in her dungeon. No one told me of that, however. But when I was dead I found that I had a heart, and my heart persecutes me. I love Francoise. — Faith! madam, I do not know why I tell you these things !"

"Pray go on," said Lady Brenda, sympathetically. " Your majesty is not the first person who has made me confidences."

"I am sure of that," answered the king. "You have a sympathetic face. Women with blue eyes can feel for others. Francoise de Foix had blue eyes — Anne's eyes were dark."

"Are they both here ? " asked Lady Brenda.

"No," said Francis, listlessly. " I shall never see them again. Anne loved me for the gifts I gave her, and there are no gifts here. Francoise loved me for myself. That was not much, was it ? I took myself from her and she never forgave me. She was right, I deserved not to be forgiven, but I did not find out how sorry I was until I came where I have time to be sorry for ever. I am tormented with a new sense which in life I did not possess — the sense of an undying affection for that lady."

"How very sad!" exclaimed Lady Brenda.

"It is horrible. Men should not suppose that while they are alive they can be heartless with impunity. When they are dead the heart will awake and cause them bitter anguish — all the more bitter because it is a pain to which they are not accustomed. People have called me perjurer because I would not go back to Madrid. There is less reason for that accusation than for the reproach of heartlessness I incurred. Charles knew well enough that the treaty he imposed upon me could never be carried out, unless my chivalric instincts made it possible. He reckoned on my stupidity — or rather on my stupid adherence to the details of an antiquated code. What he really wanted was my marriage with Eleonora. He got it. I more than atoned for refusing to return to captivity by letting him go freely through my kingdom on his way to Ghent. Anne advised me to put him into the Bastille. If I had been the perjured wretch people have since described me I would have followed her advice. I was a better gentleman than Charles. Perhaps that is not saying much. In my lifetime I aspired to be the first gentleman in France, or in the world. My faults were such as his majesty, Charles the Sour, could not well comprehend. But he comprehended my virtues in such a way as to attempt to play upon them to his own advantage on every possible occasion. I generally chose those occasions to lapse from virtue — as when I broke my Madrid promise. He had no right to expect me to sacrifice my kingdom and the welfare of my people to my personal convictions concerning the code of honour."

The king laughed, and in his laughter there was a coarse element which struck very disagreeably upon Lady Brenda's refined ears.

"You say nothing?" continued the king, as he noticed her silence.

"I do not understand politics," said Lady Brenda, wisely.

"I fear I did not understand them either," laughed Francis, good-humouredly. "The lady who ruled my son and my son's wife always said so. I was persuaded that I understood everything when I was alive — and when a man holds such an opinion of himself he will always find fools to agree with him and women to govern him. Had I known more of myself I might have avoided many complications — and poor Francoise would not have died in the vaults of a Breton castle."

"Perhaps there need never have been any Francoise for your majesty in that case," suggested Lady Brenda.

The king looked at her curiously as though not fully understanding her, or fancying that she was jesting. But Lady Brenda was grave and serious.

"You mean, madam, that I should have loved the queen, because she was queen — first Claude and then Eleonora ? That is a very singular notion, but I presume that ideas have changed since my day."

"Perhaps not so much as they ought to change," returned Lady Brenda. " There was a publicity in those days — "

"We were more honest."

" You had less to fear."

" We were more in earnest," said the king.

" Then you were worse — because you were more in earnest in doing wrong."

"Perhaps; but we were misguided by bad example — "

" Which your majesty strengthened by doing openly and ostentatiously what ought not to be done at all."

"I think we were bolder," objected Francis. " If we did wrong we were not afraid to do it in the face of the world."

"That is not a high form of courage," replied the inexorable lady.

"Nevertheless, it was courage," laughed the king. "But I will not discuss the question. I am sufficiently persuaded of my own badness without further argument. On the other hand a man is never so much in need of a word of encouragement and appreciation as when he is conscious of not deserving it."

"Am I to pay you compliments?" asked Lady Brenda, laughing in her turn. " It would not be hard. History has found much to say in praise of your majesty's reign. You were generous on many occasions — and you did much for the arts."

"By employing jewellers to make trinkets for Francoise and Anne. When any of those things are found nowadays they bring good prices, because they belong to the epoch of Francis the First. Yes — my name is connected with the arts. I meant it should be that of a conqueror and I am most famous for a phrase I did not pronounce when I was conquered. Fate, madam, is ironical. Perhaps I am more famous for having lost the day at Pavia than I should have been had I won it. If Bayard had been with me, instead of Bonnivet I should have had the victory. But Bayard was dead — poor Bayard! He was the truest friend I ever had."

"Have you found men truer friends than women?" asked Lady Brenda.

"Women have the qualities which attract without retaining affection — men have the faculty of retaining without attracting."

"What does that mean ? "

"It means that I always expected to find friends in the women I loved and was always disappointed; and that, though I was not attracted to seek the friendship of man, yet the few men who were my friends were on the whole very faithful to me. Bayard was one — poor Lautrec, Fraucoise's brother, was another. Louis de Breze was faithful — "

"He received a poor return," said Lady Brenda.

"Madam," returned the king, with much suavity, " he was old. His wife was young. My son Henri was very wild. What would you have ? Diane did very well."

"It was abominable," exclaimed Lady Brenda, hotly. " Diane de Poitiers might almost have been your majesty's son's mother! "

"It was precisely because she was older than he that she had such an influence over him," explained Francis. " Beware of reading histories in which everybody is abused for doing in one age what is considered immoral in another; in that way you get a very imperfect idea of the times. It would be as sensible to say that you think me very vulgar for wearing this dress instead of a coat and a tall hat. I cannot get rid of this dress — for I lived in it. In the same way, we of my time cannot get rid of the ideas of our epoch. We were brought up in them, we lived in them and we died in them. Indeed I think we were already improving. In a moral way, I daresay I do not compare badly with Henry the Eighth of England, with Roderigo Borgia, with Giovanni Maria Visconti, or even with my old enemy Charles Quint."

"Perhaps," admitted Lady Brenda. " The difference would have been greater had you prevented the attachment of your heir to Diane de Poitiers, and had you had no such affairs of the heart as caused the destruction of Madame de Chateaubriand — and your majesty's destruction by Madame d'Etampes."

"As for Diane," said the king, " Catherine did not object to her husband's attachment, as you call it. Honestly, would you, in her place, have thought it worth while to be so particular?"

"I? Indeed I would never have spoken to him again — though he was my husband! "

"Really? " exclaimed the king, with a rough laugh. " Are you so severe as that, madam ? "

"I cannot understand loving a man who does not love me," replied Lady Brenda, firmly. " It is enough to make one severe."

"But suppose that you had never loved him at all—"

"I would not have married him, even for the honour of being your majesty's daughter-in-law. If I had been married to him, supposing that he loved me, and if he afterwards showed me that he did not — in such a way as that — I would never speak to him again."

"Consider what would have been the difficulties of Catherine's position had she refused to pardon Henri," objected Francis. "She must have led a miserable life. Diane was powerful. She ruled France after my death."

"I would have been divorced from the king, and he could then have married Madame de Breze."

"Divorce in those days was not easy. We had prejudices which did not permit us to imitate our brother of England. We still regarded matrimony as a bond — a view of the rite which seems nowadays to be falling into disrepute."

"Oh ! I do not think so at all," exclaimed Lady Brenda, in a tone of conviction.

"No ? And yet divorces can be had very easily. It appears to me to be only an ingenious method of legalising the very faults with which you reproach me."

" On the contrary it is a human mode of escape for women who are ill-treated by their husbands. I am sure, if Brenda treated me as you — your majesty — treated Queen Claude and then Queen Eleonora, I would get divorced at once."

"But then there would be many men who would be certain to be divorced from every wife they married. A man loves a woman; he marries her; he tires of her and begins to love some one else; his wife at once divorces him and he is then at liberty to marry the next woman. She, in her turn, divorces him — and so on, so long as he can persuade any woman to accept his hand. It is convenient for the man. It will also lead to fraud, for people will only have to say, by agreement, that they are maltreated and they are instantly at liberty. It is bad, madam, very bad. It is better that a few individuals, like myself, if you please, should be sinful, than that in order to legalise sin for the few it should be legally placed within reach of the many."

"I do not think that is the case at all," said Lady Brenda, who was puzzled by the king's argument, but not convinced. "I mean that if a man really and truly treats his wife badly she ought to have some redress."

"She has. I believe that a woman may bring a suit against her husband; she may obtain a legal separation, and he is obliged to support her. Why should she wish to marry again?"

"If she is young, why should her whole life be ruined by being tied to a brute? Why may she not be happy with some one else?"

"Because if you make it possible for her, you make it possible for the next woman, who perhaps was treated badly, but less badly than the first — and then it is possible for another who had hardly suffered at all, and at last it is possible for .every man or woman who chances for a moment to prefer some other person to his or her wife or husband. It is not that in some cases it would not be a positive good; it is that the remedy you provide for such cases soon ends by creating cases in very great numbers, because the remedy is an agreeable one."

"Yes — but it is very hard for the woman who is ill-treated, all the same," said Lady Brenda, unwilling to relinquish her defence.

"Very — I agree with you," replied the king. " I made many women unhappy in that way myself. If the whole world, in regard to marriage, were directed by one sublimely wise individual, who should be really able to judge when divorce is just and necessary and to dictate the terms of it, the institution would be a good and wise one. All government is but an attempt to combine the best faculties of the many into such a working shape as may represent the imaginary action of one sublimely wise individual. Hitherto the attempt has never wholly succeeded. The government of the many has never been so good as that of one or two exceptionally good and talented autocrats who have really lived. Owing to the rarity of such individuals it is found that, as a whole, it is better to adopt the form of government by the many, where at least there is some sort of balance maintained between the bad and the good sides of human nature. I myself believed in myself so much that I founded the autocratic despotism of the kings of France, when the Parliament gave their verdict in accordance with my instructions against Charles de Bourbon. It was the first thoroughly autocratic act accomplished by a French monarch, and but for Louis de Breze, Diane's husband, it would not have been brought about, as you probably know. It was no wonder that I pardoned her father, when her husband saved me from destruction. I pardoned almost every one concerned in the conspiracy except the Constable himself. Fortunately he was killed in the storming of Rome, or he would still have given me trouble. He had the devil in his body, and would have given me no peace. Madame d'Etampes would have helped him, and did, as she afterwards helped the emperor, out of sheer hatred for Madame de Breze."

"So I have heard," said Lady Brenda. " It is an instance of the advantages your majesty obtained from the connection with Madame d'Etampes."

"To carry out your theory, madam, I should have divorced Eleonora, and married Anne in the face of the emperor. The result would have been startling."

" Yes. Madame d'Etampes would have been satisfied and you would have had her for a friend instead of an enemy. Only — according to my theory, the divorce should have been demanded by the queen, and not by your majesty. At all events the treaty of Crespy would never have been signed."

"It would have been a pity if it had not been signed, though no one could have foreseen that," answered the king. " Madame d'Etampes wanted to make a great man of my poor boy Charles at the expense of his brother, out of spite against Diane de Poitiers, by marrying him to the emperor's daughter or niece, as the emperor pleased; and to obtain this she persuaded the emperor to relinquish finally his claims upon Burgundy. Charles died, and the marriage never took place, but Burgundy remained French, and Henry ultimately overcame the emperor in at least one campaign, though he failed in others. Had he taken my advice about the Guise he might have done better. His prospects were not injured by anything I did, nor by the peace of Crespy. It is not fair to impute his failures to Madame d'Etampes, however much she tried to do him injury. She was not successful, or she would not have been obliged to leave the court after my death."

"Poor woman!" exclaimed Lady Brenda. "It must have been very hard for her to leave it all! However, she had laid up a very pretty fortune."

"An she' never loved me in the least. She was not to be pitied, for she got all she wanted in this world."

"No. I pity Francoise far more," answered Lady Brenda. " You say you never see her now ? "

"Never — I have sought her long," said the king, sadly. His whole manner changed from a tone of half cynical, half buoyant good-humour to the expression of a profound sadness, as indeed occurred every time he mentioned the ill-fated countess. " You cannot imagine," he continued, " how the thought of her dominates me, nor how hopeless is the passion of a dead man for a dead woman. It is a result, such a love, and it is irreparable, as results most often are. You who live and love cannot know what it is to love only when the body is in the grave, long crumbled into dust, and to love without hope. You who can still repair your mistakes, you cannot realise what it is to exist where there is no reparation. You who lightly forget, or remember only when it is convenient, you cannot guess at the agony of a state where you must perpetually remember everything and be conscious of the shame of a fault for centuries at a time."

"Would it be any relief for you to see her now ? "

"Yes," answered Francis, thoughtfully, "I think it would be a relief. I may be wrong, but I fancy I should be more peaceful if I could hear her say she forgave me. Perhaps she would not say it."

"I don't know," said Lady Brenda,. "I think she would. It may be possible to bring about a meeting now, owing to these astral things, or whatever Augustus calls them. I will ask him."

The king was silent and seemed deep in thought. The sun had long disappeared and as they talked the twilight deepened into night, the broad water turned black and grey in streaks and bands, and then at last all black, while one by one the stars shone out above as though angels were lighting the candles at the altars of heaven. The soft land breeze floated down from the mountains and whispered over the terrace, and stirred the thin lace which Lady Brenda had thrown over her head and about her neck. The dead king sat motionless by her side, his head sunk on his breast, his great white hands clasped together upon one knee. Lady Brenda was thinking that the party stayed long upon their excursion and was wishing that they would return; and then her thoughts came back in ready sympathy to the being by her side, to his sufferings and regrets, his overwhelming memories of the past and his slender hopes for the future.

As they sat there side by side a woman in a black mantle came slowly towards them across the terrace, her long mourning garments trailing noiselessly behind her. The dark hood had fallen back from her head, and the light from the open windows of the drawing-room fell full upon her fair and pale young face. Slowly and noiselessly she came forward, but though the king did not look up, he seemed to feel her presence, and his hands twisted each other, while his broad chest heaved with excitement.

She came and stood before him, a frail, fair, blueeyed woman with a sorrowful face and dishevelled golden hair, and she looked down on the dead king's bent head. Suddenly he sprang to his feet and threw out his arms as though he would have clasped her in them. But she drew swiftly back from him and faced him, looking sadly into his eyes.

"Ah, sire," she cried in a strange, heart-broken voice, " why were you so unkind, so cruel to me ? "

"Francoise, for the love of Heaven forgive me ! " groaned the wretched spirit, stretching out his white hands towards the woman.

"Forgive you ? " she echoed, sadly. " Is that all? I forgave you long ago. It is not all — to forgive, even when we are dead, you and I."

"It is not all, Francoise — there is more — more than I can say. I love you still," cried the king, springing forward.

"No — no — no ! You never loved me — it was only I who loved, and loved to death, too well, too long, too sinfully! "

With streaming eyes the dead woman looked despairingly at the dead man, and then with a cry she turned and fled through the soft dusk into the darkness beyond. But Francis stood still, looking sorrowfully after her, his hands hanging listlessly by his sides, his eyes moistened with tears. Then he turned to Lady Brenda.

"And so it is," he said, " that our sins pursue us for ever and cannot be forgotten. I tell you, I love her — I never really loved another woman, and I know it now. But she can never know it, until all this is over. The sin of loving her pursues me even in death — ah, madam, it is all too great and deep for me to understand."

"I am sorry she came — indeed I am," said Lady Brenda. "She has made you more unhappy than you were before."

"Yes," answered the dead man. " When we are alive we often long for something that is not good, and when we have it, we are disappointed. But when we are dead we are doomed to long for the same things, and when they are given to us they are more bitter in one moment than all the pains of ten lifetimes. If pain could kill us now, we should die every hour, every minute."

"You had so often wished to see her," said Lady Brenda, sympathetically.

"Indeed, that is true. I had wished it as I never wished anything in my life. You have seen me get my wish — you have seen my suffering. Do you think that such pain changes us ? No, we can never change. What we have made ourselves we must remain, who knows? perhaps for ever. We suffer, and have no rest. All that the heart feels from boyhood to old age, we feel at every instant of this eternity. Do you wonder that when it is possible we rejoice at meeting the living, and speaking with them, and dreaming for one moment that we are alive again, and subject to change ? "

"But there is hope still left to you," argued the lady.

"Hope — but such hope as you would not call hope at all. Do not speak to a dead man of hope, madam. It means the end. It is not hope, but doubt, for with the certainty of change, when time shall have worn itself out, there is the indescribable fear, the agony of uncertainty, the horror of what that change may be."

Lady Brenda shuddered and drew her shawl more closely around her. In the distance below she heard the sound of voices, Gwendoline's ringing laugh and Chard's deep tones as he called to the sailors. The boat had come back and the party were landing. The king held out his hand.

"I thank you for this pleasant hour, madam," he said, simply.

"Your majesty is not going ? " asked Lady Brenda, almost ludicrously forgetful, for the moment, that her visitor was only a ghost. But she started as she took his hand which chilled her to the bone.

"Yes, I am going. But we shall meet again very soon," he answered, and in a moment he had left her.