'"Oh, noble Sir Philip, never did man attain hurt so honourably or so valiantly as you," weeping over him as if he had been his mistress.
'"I have done no more," he said, "than God and England claimed of me. My life could not be better spent than in this day's service." I ordered my barge to be prepared, and, the surgeons doing all they could to stanch the blood, Philip was conveyed to Arnhem. He rests now in the house of one Madam Gruithuissens, and all that love and care can do, dear niece, shall be done by his and your sorrowing uncle,
Leicester.
'Pardon this penmanship. It is writ in haste, and not without tears, for verily, I seem now to know, as never before, what the world and his kindred possess in Philip Sidney.
R. L.
'To my dear niece, Mary, Countess of Pembroke, from before Zutphen, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of grace 1586. Enclosed in despatch to the Right Honourable Sir Francis Walsingham.'
When Lucy had finished reading, the Countess took the letter, and rising, left the room, bidding Will to remain behind.
Mistress Crawley, who was waiting in the corridor to be called in with cordials and burnt feathers, was amazed to see her lady pass out with a faint, sad smile putting aside the offered cordial.
'Nay, good Crawley, my hurt lies beyond the cure of aught but that of Him who has stricken me. I would fain be alone.'