"Well," she said, "what hast thou seen, dear friend? Come, sit you down beside me, Ida. I shall not go out to night, though the moon, peeping up there, seems to ask me to come forth under her melancholy light, which is but too like the complexion of my own thoughts, where the only brightness is the reflection from a star that has set."
"I have met with something worth telling, lady," replied Ida Mara; "it is not often one does so within these walls." And taking a seat beside Arabella, according to her orders, she began, and in a low voice recounted all that had occurred. Her tone was soft and quiet; but there was an earnest sadness in her manner, which seemed to imply, that she attached more importance to the conversation she recapitulated, than the mere words would justify. When she had told all, she dropped her voice still further, and added, "He is dying, lady, that is clear; and I fear much, by poison!"
"Alas! alas!" said Arabella, "this is a terrible fate; and if he had faults, as doubtless he had, they have been punished direfully. Oh, Ida, Ida! what a horrible thing! To die in a gloomy prison, debarred the support of kindred faces round one, or the comfort of the voices that we love, or the touch of the hand of affection, or the consolation of a good man's prayer--with assassins to tend our bed of death, and the eyes that hate us gazing on our agony. Oh, Ida! it is too terrible;--I will go to him,--a woman, a Christian, I cannot stay here, and leave him to expire without any one to pity, or any one to help. I must go to him, Ida. You say that the guards are gone; perhaps the doors may be locked; but still I can speak to him through the window. I can tell him that I grieve for him. I can bid him look to God--to his Saviour, to atonement, to redemption--to a world where the sorrows of this earth shall find compensation at last."
Her words were somewhat wild, and her manner unusually vehement; but though Ida feared that Arabella might witness a scene which would only tend to agitate and depress her still farther, she did not like to remonstrate.
"I am ready, lady," she replied; "what shall I bring you?"
"Nothing but a veil," answered Arabella; "my temples burn, the cool air will refresh me. Put on the black mantle, Ida, and draw the hood over your head, then no one will see us as we glide along the walls; or, if they do, they will take us for the spectres of some who have been here murdered. How many! Oh, God, how many!"
Ida obeyed her directions, and then, issuing forth, but without passing through the room in which the servants sat, they walked with slow and silent steps towards the tower, in which Sir Thomas Overbury was lingering out the last few hours of his miserable captivity. All was silent and still. The sun was now fully set; the gibbous moon, a few days short of her full, just shone over the parapet; the night was cool, but clear, without a breath of air stirring in the heaven; the murmur of the great city rose up around, like the sound of distant waters rolling over a pebbly bed; and a red star, shining near the earth's bright satellite, looked rather like an angry rival of the Queen of Night, than her soft attendant train-bearer.
Stealing quietly on, Arabella and her companion reached the tower where the poor captive lay, entered the open gateway which led to the stairs, and tried the door on the right hand, which they knew to be that of the sick man's chamber. It was locked, however.
"We must go to the window," said Arabella, in a low voice; and issuing forth again, she walked round to a small loop-hole, at the height of about four feet from the ground, the casement of which she found open.
"Keep where you can see if any one comes, Ida," said Arabella; and, approaching close to the window, she looked in.