“I know not, but there is no youth in his eye and in his heart. Even as a child he had the hard will and the cold craft of gray hairs. Pray Saint Mary you give me not Gloucester for a brother!”
Anne sighed and smiled. “Ah, no,” she said, after a short pause, “when thou art Princess of Clarence may I—”
“May thou what?”
“Pray for thee and thine in the house of God! Ah, thou knowest not, sweet Isabel, how often at morn and even mine eyes and heart turn to the spires of yonder convent!” She rose as she said this, her lip quivered, and she moved on in the opposite direction to that in which Richard stood, still unseen, and no longer within his hearing. Isabel rose also, and hastening after her, threw her arms round Anne’s neck, and kissed away the tears that stood in those meek eyes.
“My sister, my Anne! Ah, trust in me, thou hast some secret, I know it well,—I have long seen it. Is it possible that thou canst have placed thy heart, thy pure love—Thou blushest! Ah, Anne! Anne! thou canst not have loved beneath thee?”
“Nay,” said Anne, with a spark of her ancestral fire lighting her meek eyes through its tears, “not beneath me, but above. What do I say! Isabel, ask me no more. Enough that it is a folly, a dream, and that I could smile with pity at myself to think from what light causes love and grief can spring.”
“Above thee!” repeated Isabel, in amaze; “and who in England is above the daughter of Earl Warwick? Not Richard of Gloucester? If so, pardon my foolish tongue.”
“No, not Richard,—though I feel kindly towards him, and his sweet voice soothes me when I listen,—not Richard. Ask no more.”
“Oh, Anne, speak, speak!—we are not both so wretched? Thou lovest not Clarence? It is—it must be!”
“Canst thou think me so false and treacherous,—a heart pledged to thee? Clarence! Oh, no!”