"We'll go together!" said Margaret, putting her arm in mine.
The cottage was dark and silent, welcome proof that she was undisturbed. I knocked gently, and, after a short delay, the door opened, and her woman appeared, candle in hand.
"I knew you'd come, sir," she said simply. "And this is your lady! Come in!"
Candle in hand, she paced ahead of us to the door of the room, and then stood aside, erect and solemn, to let us pass in. I looked at her closely. The worried, anxious look on her comely face had gone, and she was subdued, calm, and happy.
"Thank God!" she whispered. "She's at peace!"
I stepped ahead of Margaret into the fine old room, with its pleasant memorials of ancientry. There they were, just as I had seen them--scutcheon, portrait, glove, and pounce-box. There was no change in them; they were the abiding elements on which a strong soul had kept itself strong. But change there was. At the prie-Dieu, kneeling in a rapture before the Virgin Mother, was a solemn, black-robed priest. A narrow white bed was in the room. Two large candles burned steadily at its head, two at the foot; and on the bed, the linen turned down to reveal the thin, frail hands crossed below the Prince's brooch, lay the still, white form of our lady of the square. God had taken her to Himself. Death had caught her with a welcoming smile on her face, and, in pity and ruth, had left it there.
The Hardys of Hardiwick had given their last gift to the cause.
Tears were streaming down Margaret's cheeks. With shaking hands she removed her hat and, kneeling down at the bedside, clasped her hands in prayer.
"She talked no end about you, sir," whispered the serving-woman, "and about the beautiful lady with you. That standing in the cold square to see the Prince was the death of her. She would have her bed put down here, sir. She wanted to die here, with the old shield in her eyes, for she was proud of her blood, as well she might be."
"Yes," I whispered back. "She was the last of a great race."