In the next instant, Anne had cast herself on her knees at the Queen’s feet.
But it was left to Gervase to speak. And he spoke as one who proudly asks a favor to which he feels he has clearly established a claim.
“Your grace.” The young man sank to his knees. “We crave of your mercy that we be permitted to die together.”
The Queen’s answer was a swift glance at the Lord Treasurer. And then, perhaps, it may have been that she felt a sudden sting of remorse for the cruel nature of the play she was enacting. Yet the face of her adviser was as cold as stone. It bore no trace of feeling. And it may have been that such an impassiveness smote the heart of one who, after all, was a woman, with all a woman’s emotions.
Involuntarily, as it seemed, the Queen turned her eyes from Cecil toward that other, that more human witness of the scene. Unconsciously, as if at the beck of an invisible power, her imperious gaze sought the mild one of him whose life was passed in the making of plays. His face, averted from a sight it could not endure, was melted with tears.
Of a sudden, something stirred in the Queen’s heart. It was such a pang of nature as had not touched it for many a long year. The time was surely at hand in which to make an end of the cruel comedy. Upon a quick impulse in which the woman alone bore a part, and the tyrannical arbitress of life and death had no share, she raised the unhappy girl in her arms and gravely kissed her on the forehead.
“You are a brave thing,” cried the harsh, rough voice. “By God, you are a brave thing. You shall suffer no more. Our pardon shall be granted to you, and also to this young man against whom as we are informed——”
But the sentence so fraught with destiny was never finished. The frail form had grown stiff and cold in the arms of the Queen.
CHAPTER XL
IT happened that one afternoon of early autumn, William Shakespeare rode out to Richmond, as he had done so many times of late, and sought poor Anne where she still lay in the house of a good friend. Her bed was in a charming chamber, from which she could see the sunlit Thames winding through its green valley. Gervase, thin and careworn, was kneeling by the bed, and his arms were holding its frail occupant.