"Bring royal purple for the pall," he faltered, "and leave the Sword of Conquest with him! No other hands will ever be found worthier to claim it!"
That night when tall white candles burned about him there stole a white-robed figure to the flower-strewn bier. 'Twas Vesta, decked as for a bridal, her golden tresses falling round her like a veil. They found her kneeling there beside him, her face like his all filled with starry light, and round them both was such a wondrous shining, the watchers drew aside in awe.
"'Tis as the old astrologers foretold," they whispered. "Her soul hath entered on its deathless vigil. In truth he was the bravest that this earth has ever known."
The porter was lighting the lamps when Mary finished reading. There was one directly above her. She moved her hand so that the light fell on her zodiac ring, and sat turning it this way and that to watch the dull gleams. By the bloodstone on her finger she was vowing that her courage should fail not in helping Jack "pick up the gauntlet which Despair flung down, and wage the warfare to his very grave."
All the way through the story she had read Jack for Aldebaran, and it should be her part to play the rôle of the Jester who had led him back to hope. She opened the book again at the sentence, "The motto written deep across his heart was this: 'To ease the burden of the world.'" Henceforth that should be her aim in life, to ease Jack's burden. Together, "by sheathed sword since blade was now denied him," they would prove his right to the Sword of Conquest.
Some great load seemed to lift itself from her own shoulders as she made this resolution. She was glad that she had been born in Mars' month. She was glad that this little story had fallen in her way.
It gave her hope and courage. Beggared of joy himself, Jack should yet be "as the eye of Taurus 'mong his fellows."
