Again was the voice like music. She could not forbear to look up into the dawn, which framed with its golden rose a fair head and a pair of brave, honest and gentle eyes.
“Is it for a grievous fault? Nay, but I am sure it is not.”
The tone was all kindness, all concern. Besides, there was some strange magic in it that had never sounded in her ears until that hour.
“Never tell me, mistress, that you are to have your head cut off on Tuesday by order of the Queen.”
The words were spoken in a manner almost whimsical. But as, startled and perhaps a little terrified, she gazed up to meet those eyes she suddenly saw that unutterable things lay behind their laughter.
The words, the look seemed almost to sicken her. And then like a strong wine a thrill of compassion ran in her veins. She rose to her feet unsteadily. Her body was so weak that she had to lean it against the wall. A thousand intolerable aches returned. She opened her lips to speak, but her voice was mute.
Looking down upon her distress, the eyes of the young man were as full of compassion as her own. The face of the girl was stained and swollen with tears; she could hardly check a groan when she moved; the cloak slipping from her shoulders revealed under the torn bodice the cruel marks of the whip.
“Oh, mistress!” The voice was tender as the missel-thrush. “What was your fault that this should have been done to you? But whatever it was, sweet mistress, you have had savage payment.”
Even as she hid her own she knew that the gentle eyes were brimming with pity.
But what were these slight aches of hers in the comparison with his own grim pass? On Tuesday he was to have his head cut off by order of the Queen. Suddenly a wild flood of anguish surged at her heart. Could such a thing be under the light of heaven? He so fair, so kind, with the fire of youth in his eyes, must the rich and glad life be torn from him in a manner so unspeakable within a space of four short days?