She paused, quite frightened at the expression of intense soul-agony which was suddenly apparent in every line of the wan young face.
Ursula bent her tall, graceful figure, and raising the gentle motherly hands to her hot lips she kissed them with passionate tenderness.
"In God's name, my dear, kind Duchess," she murmured, "do not speak soft words to me. The Holy Virgin has helped me to keep calm; I must not break down . . . not now . . . that he is coming."
Now there was the sound of firm footsteps crossing the chamber beyond. Ursula drew herself up, and for a moment a strange, scared expression came into her face, then one of intense, yet inexpressible tenderness.
Mutely she beckoned to the old Duchess, who, understanding this earnest appeal, withdrew without uttering another word.
The next moment the door at the further end of the hall was opened. A page loudly announced--
And for the first time since the awful moment when alien intrigues had parted them, these two, who had so fondly loved, so deeply suffered, were alone, face to face at last.
She saw in a moment how much older he looked, and quaintly wondered whether the black doublet and cloak caused him to seem so. Harry Plantagenet--happiest of dogs now that his master roamed about with him once more--walked with a proud step beside him.
She looked such a dainty picture, framed in the rich embrasure of the great window, her graceful figure with its crown of gold looking majestic and noble on the raised dais, ethereal and almost ghostlike, with its rich white draperies.
Just for one moment as Wessex entered the room the events of the last fortnight suddenly vanished from his memory. She was there before him, in that same soft gown of white, as she had stood that day, with a sheaf of roses in her arms--or were they marguerites?--and once more, as he had done then, he vaguely wondered what colour were her eyes. On his lips he seemed to feel again the savour of her passionate kiss, and once again to smell the perfume of her golden hair as for that one brief, heavenly minute she had lain next to his heart.
But reality--wanton, crude, and cruel--chased this brief, happy vision away with one cut of her swishing lash, and then brought before his eyes that same face and form, but with wild, restless eyes, bare neck and bosom, and with the Spaniard's hand resting masterfully on her shoulder. And Ursula, who had watched him keenly, saw the cold, contemptuous look in his eyes, the shudder which shook his powerful frame as he approached her, and she even seemed actually to be touching that stony barrier of wilful self-control, which he interposed between himself and her.
