The intruder took all in at a glance—the expectant figure, the quiet, inaccessible pleasaunce, the roof of a gilt pavilion rising, a long stone’s-throw away, above the branches of a flowering orchard; dominating all, and hiding this lovely secret in its lap, the wooded hill crowned by its protecting keep.
The young woman, with one startled glance, turned to fly; but in the very act, staggered by a recollection, turned, and came towards the Queen, a hand pressed to her bosom. She was a frail thing, in the ethereal as well as the worldly sense—fragile, it seemed, as china, and as delicately tinted. All pink and cream, with pale golden hair, her darker eyebrows were the only definite note of colour in a thin face. Even her long robe of pale green suggested the anæmia of tulip leaves forced into premature growth.
“A weak craft to have borne so huge a sin,” said Eleanor, as the girl approached. She eyed her with malignant scorn, her under lip projecting. “So, wanton,” she said, “dost know the wife thou hast wronged?”
The other gave a little mortal start and cry “The Queen!” and could utter no more.
A small, hateful laugh answered her.
“The wife, fool! the she-wolf against whom you thought to guard your fold with straws. Why, look at you—I could peel you in my hands—a bloodless stalk, without heat or beauty!”
“Spare me!”
“Aye, as the wolf spares the lamb, the hawk the wren. Let me look on you. So this is a King’s fancy. I could have wrought him better from a kitchen-scrub. Quick! I am in; I have no time to lose, and thine has come. Poison or steel—make thy choice.”
“O, madam, in pity! My heart—I have been weak and ill—I shall not vex thee long!”
“God’s blood! And baulk my vengeance? Come—poison——”