“The King! The King!” Brilliana cried, in an ecstasy, and as the loyal syllables died on her lips there came a trampling of near feet, and then through the yawning doorway rushed a covey of young gentlemen waving their drawn swords and yelling their cry, “The King! The King!” As they flooded into the room, bright foam on the wave of victorious loyalty, Brilliana knew them all. Sir Rufus Quaryll, her neighbor and hot lover; the Lord Fawley, who had vainly wooed her for wife; Sir John Radlett, who had the sense to love her and the sense to hold his tongue; Captain Bardon, the bold and bluff; and young Lord Richard Ingrow, with the delicate, girlish face that masked the amazing rake. She seemed to see them as in some golden dream, seemed to hear a-down the vistas of dreams the echoes of their gallant cries of “God save the King!” Then as the new-comers knelt before her she knew that all was true.
“God bless you, gentlemen!” she cried, from a full heart. “You are very well come.”
Rufus Quaryll, neighbor and wooer, was the first to speak, looking up at her with rapture in his eyes of reddish brown.
“Imperial lady, the siege of Harby is raised.”
Brilliana flung out her hands to him, and as he caught and kissed them she raised him to his feet.
“Your news is music,” she said, and her voice was as blithe as a song.
“We are heralds of victory,” Rufus said, as he stood and looked into her eyes.
My Lord Fawley rose from his knees with a whoop.
“We have pelted the rebels from Edgehill,” he shouted. Sir John Radlett caught him up. “We banged them finely,” he trumpeted. Young Ingrow, with a flush on his fine cheeks, sang out a shrill “Hurrah for Prince Rupert!” and bluff Bardon rubbed his hands as he chuckled, “He brushed them into dust.”