She still wore the white robes which became her so well, but now they only helped to enhance the brilliancy of her hair, the clear blue of her eyes, and a certain rosy flush, which lent to her delicate face a delicious air of childishness and innocence. She looked at no one, though her eyes were actually fixed respectfully on the Queen, but her spirit seemed to have wandered off into a land of dreams.
"Lady Alicia has told you?" rejoined the Queen.
Ursula closed her glorious eyes. A ray of intense joy seemed to illumine her whole face, lighting it with a radiance which surely had its origin in heaven. Then she slowly turned her head towards Wessex, and in one little word told him all that her soul contained.
Everything! that is to say, his sin, his mistrust of her, his great passionate love, and self-sacrifice for her. Everything! which meant her own love, her own devotion, her joy to find him true and chivalrous, her happiness and her hope.
Mary Tudor saw the look and its response from Wessex' eyes. She saw the end of the one dream which had filled her dull, rigid life and rendered it hopeful and bright. But she was above all a Tudor. She accepted the dictate of Fate, she bent the neck to a greater will than her own, and closed the book of her illusions, never to peruse its pages again. One last look at the man who had had the one passion of which her strange hard heart was capable, one short farewell to the vague hope, which until now would not be gainsaid.
From now and to the end of her days she would be Queen alone--the woman lay buried amongst the autumn leaves which strewed the walks of old Hampton Court Palace.
As Queen now she once more turned to Ursula. Justice in her demanded that every wrong should be righted, every misdoer punished.
"Child," she said quietly, "it was not you then who was with Don Miguel?"
"No, Your Majesty," replied Ursula, returning to earth at sound of the Queen's kindly voice, "Lady Alicia tells me that a girl . . . a poor, sad girl, was in face so like to me . . . that His Grace must have been mistaken . . . and . . ."
"But, child . . . then why have told a lie? . . ."
"His Eminence told me what to say before the Court, and promised His Grace would be saved by it."