"Very good, my lord," was the quiet response, and then he went to prepare the bath.
Leycester got up and strode to and fro. Though she had never entered his rooms, the apartments seemed full of her; from the easel stared the disfigured Venus which he had daubed out on the first night he had seen her. On the table, in an Etruscan vase of crystal, were some of the wild flowers which her hand had plucked, her lips had pressed. These he took—not fiercely but solemnly—and threw out of the window.
Suddenly there floated upon the air the strains of solemn music. He started. He had almost forgotten Lilian; the great sorrow and misery had almost driven her from his memory. He sat the vase down upon the table, and went to her room; she knew his knock, and bade him come in, still playing.
But as he entered, she stopped suddenly, and the smile which had flown to her face to welcome him disappeared.
"Ley!" she breathed, looking up at his pale, haggard face and dark-rimmed eyes; "what has happened? What is the matter?"
He stood beside her, and bent and kissed her; his lips were dry and burning.
"Ley! Ley!" she murmured, and put her white arm round his neck to draw him down to her, "what is it?"
Then she scanned him with loving anxiety.
"How tired you look, Ley! Where have you been? Sit down!"