'Not seldom doth the sun sink down In brightest light
Which rose at early dawn disfigured quite outright;
So shall my fortunes, wrapt so long in darkest night,
Revive, and show ere long an aspect clear and bright.'"
"Yea," she answered. "And now listen to what her majesty, calling for a like instrument, wrote beneath:
'Not seldom do vain hopes deceive a silly heart
Let all each witless dreams now vanish and depart;
For fortune shall ne'er shine, I promise thee, on one
Whose folly hath for aye all hopes thereof undone.'
"We do live," she added, "with a sword hanging over our heads; and it is meet we should come here this day to learn a lesson how to die when a like fate shall overtake us. But thou hast been like to die by another means, my good Constance," her ladyship said, looking with kindness but no astonishment on my swollen and disfigured face, which I had not remembered to conceal; grave thoughts, then uppermost, having caused me to forget it.
"My life," I answered, "God hath mercifully spared; but I have lost the semblance of my former self."
"Tut, tut!" she replied, "only for a time."
And then we both drew near unto the fire, for we were shivering with cold. Lord Arundel leant against the chimney, and watched the timepiece.
"Mistress Wells," he said, "is like, I hear, to be reprieved at the last moment."
"Alas!" I cried, "nature therein finds relief; yet I know not how much to rejoice or yet to grieve thereat. For surely she will desire to die with her husband. And of what good will life be to her if, like some others, she doth linger for years in prison?"
"Of much good, if God wills her there to spend those years," Muriel gently said; which words, I ween, were called to mind long afterward by one who then heard them.