Mataswintha rose and seated herself, with an air of fatigue, upon the edge of her couch.
"Draw near," she said to the woman. "Thy message concerns the King? Why dost thou hesitate? Speak!"
The woman pointed at Aspa.
"She is silent and faithful."
"She is a woman."
At a sign from the Queen, the slave reluctantly left the room.
"Daughter of the Amelungs, I know that nothing but the strait in which the kingdom stood, and not love, led thee to Witichis.--(How lovely she is, although pale as death!)--Yet thou art the Queen of the Goths--his Queen--and even if thou dost not love him, his kingdom, his triumph, must be all in all to thee."
Mataswintha grasped the gilded arm of her couch.
"So thinks every beggar in the nation!" she sighed.
"To the King I cannot speak, for special reasons," continued the woman. "Therefore I speak to thee whose province it is to succour and warn him against treason. Listen to me." And she drew nearer, looking keenly at the Queen.--"How strange," she said to herself; "what similarity of form!"