Just the opening of a door! gently, noiselessly, until the sound from the Great Hall entered into this inner room, and voices clearly detached themselves from the confusing hubbub.
Then His Eminence whispered, "Hush, my daughter! listen! my Lord High Steward is speaking."
At first perhaps she did not hear, certainly she did not understand, for her attitude did not relax its uncompromising stiffness.
Lord Chandois was delivering his first speech.
"My lords and gentlemen," he said, "ye are here assembled this day that ye may try Robert d'Esclade, Duke of Wessex, for a grievous and heinous crime, which he hath wilfully committed."
It was just the opening and shutting of a door—the claw of the cat upon the neck of the mouse. At first sound of Wessex' name Ursula had risen to her feet, straight and rigid like a machine. She did not look towards the door, but fixed her eyes on him—her tormentor—fascinated as a bird, to whom a snake has beckoned and bade it to come nigh.
The colour rose to her cheeks, the reality was gradually dawning upon her. That man who spoke in the Great Hall beyond was a judge—there were other judges there too. When she arrived at Westminster she had seen a great concourse of people, heard the names of great legal dignitaries whispered round her, and of peers who had been summoned for a great occasion.
That occasion was the trial of the Duke of Wessex on a charge of murder.
"No, no, no," she whispered hoarsely, somewhat wildly, as she took a step forward; "no, no, no . . . not yet . . . it is not true . . . not yet——"
The thin crust of ice which had enveloped her heart was melting in the broad garish light of the actual, awful fact—the commencement of Wessex' trial.