"Other vows and other lovers," he mused, whilst trying to shut away from his eyes the hellish visions which tortured him. "So my beautiful Fanny is not mine at all . . . but the Spaniard's . . . or another's . . . what matter whose? Not true and proud, but a frisky wench, ready for intrigue, of whom these foreigners speak with a coarse laugh and a shrug of the shoulders."
"Harry Plantagenet, my friend," he added, as the dog, seeming to feel the presence of sorrow, gave his master's hand a gentle lick, "His Grace of Wessex has been made a fool of by a woman. . . . Ah, fortune! fickle fortune! one or two turns of your relentless wheel and a host of illusions . . . the last I fear me . . . have been scattered to the winds. . . . Shall we go, old Harry? Meseems you are the only honest person in this poison-infected Court. We'll not stay in it, friend, I promise you. . . . I am thirsting for the pure air of our Devon moors. . . . Come, now . . . we must to bed . . . and sleep. . . . Not dream, old Harry! . . . whatever else we do . . . for God's sake, let us not dream. . . ."
CHAPTER XXVI
THE PROVOCATION
When Ursula finally succeeded in escaping from her room, where she had been forcibly confined—almost a prisoner—in the charge of two waiting-women, she returned to the hall, vaguely hoping that Wessex would still be there. She found no one. The closet door was open; taking one of the wax tapers in her hand she peeped into the inner room and saw that it was empty.
On the fur rug, on the floor, was still the impress of Harry Plantagenet's body, as he had curled himself up patiently to wait and sleep.
A sudden draught extinguished the taper and left the small room in total darkness; to her overwrought nerves it seemed cold and lonely, like a newly opened grave. Wessex had gone because he had heard that she had deceived him. The slanders uttered against her had found credence in his heart. Thus she mused, guessing at the truth, perhaps not even realizing how much he had suffered.
She would not go back to her room just yet. She knew that she could not rest. Though the room was empty there seemed something of him still in it, even in its cold and deserted aspect.
She lingered here, sitting in the chair where he had sat and heard. She could not cry, she would not give way, for she wished to think. Therefore she lingered.
Thus fate worked its will in this strange history of that night.