girl, though soon aware of frequent rustlings near at hand, lay
quiet, half-forgetful of the poisonous woman yonder. The girl was now
fulfilled with a great blaze of exultation; to-morrow Gregory must die,
and then perhaps she might find time for tears; but meanwhile, before
her eyes, the man had flung away a kingdom and life itself for love of
her, and the least nook of her heart ached to be a shade more worthy of
the sacrifice.

After it might have been an hour of this excruciate ecstasy the
Countess came to Rosamund's bed. "Ay," the woman hollowly began, "it
is indisputable that his hair is like spun gold and that his eyes
resemble sun-drenched waters in June. And that when this Gregory
laughs God is more happy. Ma belle, I was familiar with the routine of
your meditations ere you were born."

Rosamund said, quite simply: "You have known him always. I envy the
circumstance, Madame Gertrude--you alone of all women in the world I
envy, since you, his sister, being so much older, must have known him
always."

"I know him to the core, my girl," the Countess answered, and afterward
sat silent, one bare foot jogging restlessly; "yet am I two years the
junior-- Did you hear nothing, Rosamund?"

"Nay, Madame Gertrude, I heard nothing."

"Strange!" the Countess said; "let us have lights, since I can no
longer endure the overpopulous darkness." She kindled, with twitching
fingers, three lamps and looked in vain for more. "It is as yet dark
yonder, where the shadows quiver very oddly, as though they would rise
from the floor--do they not, my girl?--and protest vain things. Nay,
Rosamund, it has been done; in the moment of death men's souls have
travelled farther and have been visible; it has been done, I tell you.
And he would stand before me, with pleading eyes, and reproach me in a
voice too faint to reach my ears--but I would see him--and his groping
hands would clutch at my hands as though a dropped veil had touched me,
and with the contact I would go mad!"

"Madame Gertrude!" the girl now stammered, in communicated terror.

"Poor innocent dastard!" the woman said, "I am Ysabeau of France." And
when Rosamund made as though to rise, in alarm, Queen Ysabeau caught
her by the shoulder. "Bear witness when he comes I never hated him.
Yet for my quiet it was necessary that it suffer so cruelly, the
scented, pampered body, and no mark be left upon it! Eia! even now he
suffers! Nay, I have lied. I hate the ma