There was no answer; but as she listened she heard from within the gentle tinkle of some liquid running into a bowl, rhythmically, and with pauses. Then again she tapped, nervously and rapidly, and there was a murmur from the room; she opened the door softly, pushed it, and took a step into the room, half closing it behind her.
There were two candles burning on a table in the middle of the room, and on the near side of it was a group of three persons....
Isabel had seen in one of Mistress Margaret’s prayer-books an engraving of an old Flemish Pietà—a group of the Blessed Mother holding in her arms the body of her Crucified Son, with the Magdalen on one side, supporting one of the dead Saviour’s hands. Isabel now caught her breath in a sudden gasp; for here was the scene reproduced before her.
Lady Maxwell was on a low seat bending forwards; the white cap and ruff seemed like a veil thrown all about her head and beneath her chin; she was holding in her arms the body of her son, who seemed to have fainted as he sat beside her; his head had fallen back against her breast, and his pointed beard and dark hair and her black dress beyond emphasised the deathly whiteness of his face on which the candlelight fell; his mouth was open, like a dead man’s. Mistress Margaret was kneeling by his left hand, holding it over a basin and delicately sponging it; and the whole air was fragrant and aromatic with some ointment in the water; a long bandage or two lay on the ground beside the basin. The evening light over the opposite roofs through the window beyond mingled with the light of the tapers, throwing a strange radiance over the group. The table on which the tapers stood looked to Isabel like a stripped altar.
She stood by the door, her lips parted, motionless; looking with great eyes from face to face. It was as if the door had given access to another world where the passion of Christ was being re-enacted.
Then she sank on her knees, still watching. There was no sound but the faint ripple of the water into the basin and the quiet breathing of the three. Lady Maxwell now and then lifted a handkerchief in silence and passed it across her son’s face. Isabel, still staring with great wide eyes, began to sigh gently to herself.
“Anthony, Anthony, Anthony!” she whispered.
“Oh, no, no, no!” she whispered again under her breath. “No, Anthony! you could not, you could not!”
Then from the man there came one or two long sighs, ending in a moan that quavered into silence; he stirred slightly in his mother’s arms; and then in a piteous high voice came the words “Jesu ... Jesu ... esto mihi ... Jesus.”
Consciousness was coming back. He fancied himself still on the rack.