I looked at her, at that awful woman who had killed my lady, and who was killing such large numbers of those who had rebelled against her, and less than ever could I sing; for a feeling of disgust and hatred was surging up within me, whilst my brain teemed with the reproaches I dared not utter, even if I could.
'Massingbird'—the queen's voice seemed to come from a great distance now, as she spoke to the physician who took me to her—'what is the meaning of this? I allowed you to bring here the girl with the wonderful voice, who sang to me in the Tower, that time I suffered so much from sleeplessness, and you have brought this girl who cannot sing, and who cannot be the same girl as the lovely one who sang to me before.'
'Madam, she is the same girl, I assure your Majesty,' said the Court physician in his courtliest tone.
'She cannot be the same!' cried the queen angrily. 'This is no young girl with golden hair and a sweetly pretty rosebud face. This is a woman, with a sad, pale countenance, and—and white hair.'
'It is sorrow,' said the physician gently, 'which has changed the pretty child into the grief-stricken woman, and a terrible anxiety and dread is even now crushing her heart and killing her.'
'Killing her?' cried the queen incredulously.
'Yes, killing her. Death has already laid his hand upon her hair—her pretty golden hair—bleaching it white, then, going downwards, he has taken her voice—we did not know that until she stood up here to sing——'
'Pooh!' exclaimed Mary, still angrily. 'What stuff! She looks a peevish woman,' and, disgustedly, 'she cannot sing.'
Then Dr. Massingbird's indignation overmastering his habitual caution, he exclaimed—
'Can the caged lark sing? Can those whose "tears have been their meat day and night" sing? Can the broken heart burst forth into singing? Can the mourner sing for joy and gladness? This poor young lady,' he turned to me, laying a kind, fatherly hand upon my shoulder, 'this poor young lady has lost her best friend on the scaffold, and her lover, a lad of twenty-one, lies in the Tower under sentence of death. These things have bleached her hair and taken the colour from her face; moreover, as we have just discovered, they have robbed her of her voice.'