used to beg, but within
this hour you encounter death, and I have loved no man in all my life
saving only you, Sir Gregory Darrell. Nor have you loved any person as
you loved me once in France. Oh, to-day, I may speak freely, for with
you the doings of that boy and girl are matters overpast. Yet were it
otherwise--eh, weigh the matter carefully! for I am mistress of England
now, and England would I give you, and such love as that slim, white
innocence has never dreamed of would I give you, Gregory Darrell--No,
no! ah, Mother of God, not you!" The Queen clapped one hand upon his
lips.

"Listen," she quickly said; "I spoke to tempt you. But you saw, and you
saw clearly, that it was the sickly whim of a wanton, and you never
dreamed of yielding, for you love this Rosamund Eastney, and you know me
to be vile. Then have a care of me! The strange woman am I, of whom we
read that her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of
death. Hoh, many strong men have been slain by me, and in the gray time
to come will many others be slain by me, it may be; but never you among
them, my Gregory, who are more wary, and more merciful, and who know
that I have need to lay aside at least one comfortable thought against
eternity."

"I concede you to have been unwise--" he hoarsely began.

About them fell the dying leaves, of many glorious colors, but the air
of this new day seemed raw and chill.

Then Rosamund came through the opening in the hedge. "Now, choose," she
said; "the woman offers life and high place and wealth, and it may be, a
greater love than I am capable of giving you. I offer a dishonorable
death within the moment."

And again, with that peculiar and imperious gesture, the man flung back
his head, and he laughed. Said Gregory Darrell:

"I am I! and I will so to live that I may face without shame not only
God, but also my own scrutiny." He wheeled upon the Queen and spoke
henceforward very leisurely. "I love you; all my life long I have loved
you, Ysabeau, and even now I love you: and you, too, dear Rosamund, I
love, though with a difference. And every fibre of my being lusts for
the power that you would give me, Ysabeau, and for the good which I
would do with it in the England which I or blustering Roger Mortimer
must rule; as every fibre of my being lusts for the man that I would be
could I choose death without debate. And I think also of the man that
you would make of me, my Rosamund.

"The man! And wha