on men--ay, of thieves and murderers--whose lips the
rack could not unlock! It seems that our English knights grow less
resolved.... My lords, the sun is declining. If we would take the water
to-day, we must make no farther tarrying. Your hand, my Lord of
Leicester."

Once more her train put itself into motion. Lords and ladies, lips that
smiled and hearts all busy with the next link in Ambition's golden
chain, on they swept into the pleasant outer air. The one man of the
motley throng of suitors to whom Elizabeth had spoken rose from his
knee, picked up his frieze coat, and turned a face that might have gone
unrecognized of friend or foe towards the door by which he had entered
the gallery.

IX

Giles Arden, having ridden far as required the tale of miles from the
tavern of the Triple Tun, came, upon a sunshiny afternoon of early
spring, to an oak knoll where one might halt to admire a fair picture of
an old house set in old gardens. Old were the trees that shadowed it,
and ivy darkened all its walls; without sound a listless beauty breathed
beneath the pale blue skies; for all the sunshine and the bourgeoning of
the spring, the picture seemed but sombrely rich, but sadly sweet. To
the lips of a light-of-heart there was that in its quality had brought a
sigh: as for Arden, when he had checked his horse he looked upon the
scene with a groan, then presently for very mirthlessness, laughed.

"That day," he said to himself with a grimace--"that day when we forsook
our hawking, and dismounting on this knoll, planned for him his new
house! There should be the front, there the tower, there the great room
where the Queen should lie when she made progress through these ways!
All to be built when, like a tiercel-gentle to his wrist, came more
fame, more gold!"

The speaker turned in his saddle and looked about him with a rueful
smile.

"I on yonder mossy stone, and Sidney, chin in hand, full length beneath
that oak, and he standing there, his arm about the neck of his gray! And
what says monsieur the traitor? 'I like it well as it stands, nor will I
tear down what my forefathers built. Plain honor and plain truth are the
walls thereof, and encompassed by them, the Queen's Grace may lie down
with pride.' Brave words, traitor! Gulls, gulls (saith the world),
friend Sidney! For a modicum of thy judgment, Solomon, King of Jewry, I
would give (an he would bestow it upon me) my cousin the Earl's
great ruby!"

He laughed