the Queen's disposition of me may be. For
God's sake, Philip Sidney, get me this! I am not yet under arrest_--_I
am hard by the Palace, at the Bell Inn_.--_You may effect it if you
will. God knows you have a silver tongue and she a heart of gold! I
trust her to give me speech with her as I trust you to find the way_.

_Time was, thy friend; time is, thy suppliant only_.

_MORTIMER FERNE_.

_O Sidney, Sidney! I am not altogether base_!

The maid of honor folded the letter, keeping it, however, in her hand.
Her companion, turning towards her, chanced to see her face of sombre
horror, of wide, tearless eyes, and would look no more. To themselves
the two were modern of the moderns, ranked in the forefront of the
present; courtier, statesman, and poet of the day, exquisite maid of
honor whose every hour convention governed,--yet the face upon which in
one revealing moment he had gazed seemed not less old than the face of
Helen--of Medea--of Ariadne; not less old and not less imperishably
beautiful. Neither spoke of her idyll turned to a crowder's song.
Knowing that there were no words which she could bear, he waited, his
mind filled with deep pity, hers with God knows what complexity, what
singleness of feeling, until at last a low sound--no intelligible
word--came from her throat. The plumed fan dropped the length of its
silken cord, and her hands went out for help that should yet be
voiceless, assuming everything, expressing nothing. He met her call, as
three years later he met, at Zutphen, the agony of envy, the appeal
against intolerable thirst, in the eyes of a common soldier.

"No command concerning him has yet been given," he said, gently. "I sent
him mask and cloak--he came by yonder way,--met me here.... There were
few words.... His humor is that of glancing steel."

"That is as it should be," answered the maid of honor.

Her companion parted the hangings which separated the two from the
gallery. "He awaits behind yonder door where stands the boy."
Ceremoniously he took her hand and led her to an entrance beside which
leaned a slender lad in a ragged blue jerkin and hose. "Robin, you will
watch yonder at the great doors. Sweet lady, I stand here, and none
shall enter. But remember that the time is short--at any moment the
gallery may fill."

"There is no long time needed," said Damans. In her voice there was no
anger nor shame nor poignant grief, but she spoke as in a dream, and her
face when she turned it