Joan Bush was at her gate and stepped out and dipped a courtesy with appealing civility.
"Your Grace," she said, "if I might make so bold—poor Mistress Anne—" And having said so much checked herself in much confusion. "I lose my wits," she said; "your Grace's pardon. Your Grace has been, to town and but now comes back, and will not know. But we so love the kind gentlewoman—" and she mopped her eyes.
"You mean that Mistress Anne is worse?" he said.
"The poor lady fell into a sudden strange swoon but an hour ago," she answered. "My Matthew, who was at the Tower of an errand said she came in from the flower-garden and sank lifeless. And the servants who carried her to her chamber say 'twas like death. And she hath been so long fading. And we know full well the end must come soon."
My lord Duke rode on. A fulness tightened his throat and he looked up at the blue sky.
"Poor Anne! Kind Anne!" he said. "Pure heart! I could think 'twas for the passing of her soul the day was made so fair."
At the park gates the woman from the lodge stood at her door and made her obeisance tearfully. She was an honest soul to whom her Grace's sister seemed a saint from Heaven.
"What is the last news?" said my lord Duke, speaking more from kindness than aught else.
"That the dear lady lies in her bed in the Turret chamber and her Grace watches with her alone. Oh, my lord Duke, God calls another angel to Himself this day!"
The very air was still with a strange stillness. The Tower itself rose white and clear against the blue as though its battlements and fair turrets might be part of the Eternal City. This strange fancy passed through his Grace's mind as he rode towards it. The ivy hung thick about the window of Anne's chamber in the South Tower. 'Twas a room she loved and had spent long, peaceful days in, and had fitted as a little shrine. Her lovingness had taught her to feed the doves from it, and they had grown to be her friends and companions, and now a little cloud of them flew about and lighted on the turrets and clung to the festoons of ivy, and flew softly about as if they were drawn to the place by some strange knowledge and waited for that which was to come to pass. Two or three sate upon the deep window-ledge and cooed as if they told those not so near what they could see inside the quiet room.