Such feelings, and all the many collateral thoughts to which those feelings gave rise, were busy in his breast, as he followed the good old Lord of Neufchatel towards the door. Just as he was going out, he turned to take one more glance of the princess, the last, perhaps, he was ever to obtain; but Mary of Burgundy, and her ladies, had already quitted the hall, as well as his accuser, Maillotin du Bac, who had hastened away to conceal himself from popular indignation. Nothing was to be seen but one or two of the members of the council, standing together in a group at the farther end of the table, and apparently, by the gay laughter in which they were indulging, conversing over some indifferent subject. Albert Maurice turned, and strode through the ante-chamber, while the Lord of Neufchatel walked on before him, demonstrating, with proud courtesy, various points of feudal law to good Martin Fruse, who listened to his speech with every mark of the most deferential respect. The young citizen was just entering the outer hall, and he already heard the shouts of the people in the square, welcoming with a glad voice, the news of his acquittal, which had preceded his own appearance, when somebody plucked him by the sleeve, and one of the officers of the household informed him, in a low tone, that the Princess Mary required his presence for a moment in private.
The heart of the young burgher beat quick; but without pause he followed the attendant, as he turned away from him, and in a moment had passed through one of the side doors into the private apartments of the palace.
CHAPTER XV.
Every one knows that, in the early dawn of a Sicilian morning, the shepherds and the watchers on the coast of the Messinese Strait will sometimes behold, in the midst of the clear unclouded blue of the sky, a splendid but delusive pageant, which is seen also, though in a less vivid form, amongst the Hebrides. Towers and castles, domes and palaces, festivals and processions, arrayed armies and contending hosts, pass, for a few minutes, in brilliant confusion before the eyes of the beholders, and then fade away, as if the scenes of another world were, for some especial purpose, conjured up during one brief moment, and then withdrawn for ever from their sight.
Thus there are times, too, in the life of man, when the spirit, excited by some great and stirring passion, or by mingling with mighty and portentous events, seems to gain for a brief instant a confused but magnificent view of splendid things not yet in being. Imagination in the one case, and her daughter Hope, in the other, give form and distinctness to the airy images, though both are too soon doomed to fade away amidst the colder realities of the stern world we dwell in.
The mind of Albert Maurice had been excited by the scenes he had just gone through; and success, without making him arrogant, had filled him full of expectation. Each step that he took forward seemed but to raise him higher, and each effort of an enemy to crush him seemed, without any exertion of his own, only to clear the way before him. Such thoughts were mingling with other feelings, brought forth by the sight, and the voice, and the smile of Mary of Burgundy, when the sudden call to her presence woke him from such dreams; but woke him only to show to his mind's eye many a confused but bright and splendid image, as gay, as glittering, as pageant-like, but as unreal also, as the airy vision which hangs in the morning light over the Sicilian seas. Fancy at once called up everything within the wide range of possibility. Battles and victories, and triumphant success, the shout of nations and of worlds, the sceptre, the palace, and the throne, and a thousand other indistinct ideas of mighty things, danced before his eyes for a moment, with a sweeter and a brighter image, too, as the object and end of ambition, the reward of mighty endeavour, the crowning boon of infinite success. But still he felt and knew, even while he dreamed, that it was all unreal; and, as he followed the messenger with a quick pace, the vision faded, and left him but the cold and naked truth. At length, after passing through several chambers, which flanked the hall of audience, the door of a small apartment, called the bower, was thrown open, and the young burgher stood once more before Mary of Burgundy.
One of the most painful curses of high station is that of seldom, if ever, being alone; of having no moment, except those intended for repose, in which to commune with one's own heart, without the oppression of some human eye watching the emotions of the mind as they act upon the body, and keeping sentinel over the heart's index, the face. Mary of Burgundy was not alone, though as much alone as those of her station usually are. She stood near a window, at the other side of the apartment, with her soft rounded arm and delicate hand twined in those of one of her fair attendants, Alice of Imbercourt, on whom she leaned slightly, while the Lord of Imbercourt himself stood beside her on the other hand; and, with his stately head somewhat bent, seemed, with all due reverence, to give her counsel upon some private matter of importance. Another figure was retiring from an opposite door as Albert Maurice entered; but who it was, the faint glance he caught did not permit the young burgher to distinguish.
He advanced towards the spot where the princess stood, with the usual marks of ceremony and reverence; and, as he came near and bent one knee, she held out her hand for him to kiss, with a gentle smile, but with the air and demeanour of a princess.
"I congratulate you, Master Albert Maurice," she said, as soon as he had risen, "on the clear and satisfactory manner in which you have been enabled to establish your innocence; for I fear, it sometimes happens that persons accused are not able to bring forward sufficient evidence to exculpate them before their princes, who, judging according to their best conscience, are often charged with cruelty or partiality, more from the defect of the testimony offered to them, than from any desire of doing aught but justice. I therefore congratulate you most sincerely on your having had the means of establishing your innocence beyond all doubt: and I am deeply gratified myself, that you have been able to remove every doubt from my own mind, as well as to satisfy my council."
"Had every person accused, so gracious and impartial a judge, madam," replied the young citizen, "it were happy for the world; and, indeed, it was my full confidence in your own justice, and in that of the noble lords of the council, which made me appeal so boldly to your own decision."