the middle of the room, and
on the near side of it was a group of three persons....

Isabel had seen in one of Mistress Margaret's prayer-books an engraving
of an old Flemish Pieta--a group of the Blessed Mother holding in her
arms the body of her Crucified Son, with the Magdalen on one side,
supporting one of the dead Saviour's hands. Isabel now caught her breath
in a sudden gasp; for here was the scene reproduced before her.

Lady Maxwell was on a low seat bending forwards; the white cap and ruff
seemed like a veil thrown all about her head and beneath her chin; she
was holding in her arms the body of her son, who seemed to have fainted
as he sat beside her; his head had fallen back against her breast, and
his pointed beard and dark hair and her black dress beyond emphasised the
deathly whiteness of his face on which the candlelight fell; his mouth
was open, like a dead man's. Mistress Margaret was kneeling by his left
hand, holding it over a basin and delicately sponging it; and the whole
air was fragrant and aromatic with some ointment in the water; a long
bandage or two lay on the ground beside the basin. The evening light over
the opposite roofs through the window beyond mingled with the light of
the tapers, throwing a strange radiance over the group. The table on
which the tapers stood looked to Isabel like a stripped altar.

She stood by the door, her lips parted, motionless; looking with great
eyes from face to face. It was as if the door had given access to another
world where the passion of Christ was being re-enacted.

Then she sank on her knees, still watching. There was no sound but the
faint ripple of the water into the basin and the quiet breathing of the
three. Lady Maxwell now and then lifted a handkerchief in silence and
passed it across her son's face. Isabel, still staring with great wide
eyes, began to sigh gently to herself.

"Anthony, Anthony, Anthony!" she whispered.

"Oh, no, no, no!" she whispered again under her breath. "No, Anthony! you
could not, you could not!"

Then from the man there came one or two long sighs, ending in a moan that
quavered into silence; he stirred slightly in his mother's arms; and then
in a piteous high voice came the words "_Jesu ... Jesu ... esto mihi
... Jesus_."

Consciousness was coming back. He fancied himself still on the rack.

Lady Maxwell said nothing, but gathered him a little closer, and bent her
face lower over him.

Then again came a long sob