The youngest of the party, a fair-haired, good-looking young man of about five-and-twenty, paused and turned to her, as if the name belonged to him.
"Pray you, of your grace, come one moment hither," she said, speaking with some difficulty.
The young Marquis came forward at once, and knelt by the bed of the dying nun, who looked earnestly for some seconds into his face.
"What kin are you," she asked, "to sometime Queen Elizabeth, whose son was Lord of Dorset?"
"That son was my father's father," answered the young man.
"So long ago!" said the dying woman. "Young Lord, 'tis but like yesterday that your father's father was a young man like you. 'Past, as a watch in the night!'"
Her eyes ran feebly over the handsome features, the clear grey eyes, the nervous twitching of the brow, the good-natured fulness of the lower lip, the weak, vacillating indecision of the retreating chin. In those few seconds, she seemed to read his character.
"The good Lord's grace be with thee!" said the faint voice at last. "Be thou strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might!"
Did Henry Grey think of those words, twenty years later, when after a life spent in bondage through fear of death, God gave him grace to break through the trammels of Satan, and to stand bravely out upon Tower Hill to die for Him?
The Commissioners were gone, to the relief of the Abbess, who muttered something as the door closed after them, which was not the same form of words as the benediction with which she had greeted them. The next moment she bent down to listen to the weak tones of Mother Agnes.