“How can the king hold here a court and here a prison? Oh, hard heart!” murmured Anne, as, when Edward had disappeared, the damsels bent their way to Adam’s chamber.
“Would the Earl Warwick approve thy pity, sweet Lady Anne?” asked Sibyll.
“My father’s heart is too generous to condemn it,” returned Anne, wiping the tears from her eyes; “how often in the knight’s galliard shall I see that face!”
The turret in which Warner’s room was placed flanked the wing inhabited by the royal family and their more distinguished guests (namely, the palace, properly speaking, as distinct from the fortress), and communicated with the regal lodge by a long corridor, raised above cloisters and open to a courtyard. At one end of this corridor a door opened upon the passage, in which was situated the chamber of the Lady Anne; the other extremity communicated with a rugged stair of stone, conducting to the rooms tenanted by Warner. Leaving Sibyll to present her learned father to the gentle Anne, we follow the king into the garden, which he entered on dismounting. He found here the Archbishop of York, who had come to the palace in his barge, and with but a slight retinue, and who was now conversing with Hastings in earnest whispers.
The king, who seemed thoughtful and fatigued, approached the two, and said, with a forced smile, “What learned sententiary engages you two scholars?”
“Your Grace,” said the archbishop, “Minerva was not precisely the goddess most potent over our thoughts at that moment. I received a letter last evening from the Duke of Gloucester, and as I know the love borne by the prince to the Lord Hastings, I inquired of your chamberlain how far he would have foreguessed the news it announced.”
“And what may the tidings be?” asked Edward, absently.
The prelate hesitated.
“Sire,” he said gravely, “the familiar confidence with which both your Highness and the Duke of Gloucester distinguish the chamberlain, permits me to communicate the purport of the letter in his presence. The young duke informs me that he hath long conceived an affection which he would improve into marriage, but before he address either the demoiselle or her father, he prays me to confer with your Grace, whose pleasure in this, as in all things, will be his sovereign law.”
“Ah, Richard loves me with a truer love than George of Clarence! But who can he have seen on the Borders worthy to be a prince’s bride?”