"I would have lived for thee," she said, "to have but served thee; to have made the paltry riches I own, available to thy genius."
As she uttered this, she sank down sobbing upon the couch. Shakespeare, in an agony of grief, tried to raise and recover her, but she sank quickly into insensibility: and when he laid her down again upon her pillow, as he looked upon her, he saw she was dead!
Dead! but without the ghastly appearance which the grisly tyrant stamps upon his prey.
"Death, that had sucked the honey of her breath,
Had yet no power upon her beauty.
Beauty's ensign yet
Was crimson on her lips and in her cheeks,
And Death's pale flag was not advanced there."
CHAPTER XXII.
BEREAVEMENT.
One week has elapsed since the events narrated in the last chapter. The house of Clopton is shut up, empty, deserted. The good Sir Hugh is again at liberty; but the seas flow between him and Britain. After having been examined by Lord Hunsden, Sir Christopher Hatton, and Sir Francis Walsingham, three members of the Privy Council, he was released from confinement. The conspirators, all excepting the priest Eustace, who had escaped, and through whose intrigues the good knight had become an object of suspicion to the Council, were condemned to death and executed in Old Palace Yard two days after. With eager haste, and tarrying at each post but to obtain fresh horses, Sir Hugh and Walter Arderne had (immediately on the release of the former) galloped as hard as spur and bridle could urge on their steeds towards Clopton. Unluckily they passed Martin in the night on the road near Oxford, as he was hastening towards London with the intention of breaking the news of Charlotte's death to them.
One letter had, in a measure, prepared the good knight to find his daughter dangerously ill; but as in those days, both the inditing and conveying a packet was a matter of considerable time and toil, letters were by no means so sure of coming to hand, or so speedily delivered as in latter times.
So that the unhappy knight arrived at the Hall to find desolation where he had left plenty. His house was shut up——his daughter dead. She had died of the plague, it was said; and with fearful haste, by order of the authorities of the neighbouring town, had been buried.