When the glamour faded he rose, staggering, and wept a little for joy.
It was a tremendous moment of his life.
Then he went home across the wet fields, outwardly an ordinary gentleman, inwardly a soul newly awake to salvation, bearing a burning light no more to be quenched until it returned to Heaven.
CHAPTER II
THREE YEARS LATER
"Sir," said the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, who had been called hotly from that country to counsel the imperative needs of the King. "I am come to give you advice, and I tell you first, and plainly, never man came to so lost a business."
As he spoke they stood looking at each other, master and servant, King and minister, in a little cabinet of Whitehall, that glittered with richness and flash of deep colour, like a casket of jewels.
Beyond the deep square window lay the gardens, the houses, the straight reach of river, and London, beneath a quivering August haze; no discord of sight nor sound disturbed the peaceful harmony of this scene, and in the palace gardens the trees rustled and the flowers gave forth their strength in sweet odours unvexed by human noise or hustle; yet my lord, gazing out on this sunshine, knew well enough that the city, whose towers rose beyond the sleepy river, was nursing forces that might soon gather sufficient deadly power to sweep him, and all he stood for, into nothingness. He bore himself erect, and the courage that was his strongest quality showed in his haughty pose, in the expression of his dark, disdainful face, in the quiet smile with which he spoke his gloomy pronouncement.