'Twas midnight. Alone in the dismal cell to which her father's cruelty had consigned her, the Lady Agatha wept unceasingly. Sleep came not to her weary eyes, she paced restlessly up and down, or gazed through the narrow bars of the window over the moonlit landscape.
Suddenly she started! Was it fancy? Nay, 'twas a human voice, manly, resonant, and strong, that sang beneath her window. She could catch some of the words:
"O sweetest blossom of the lea,
O daintiest flower of the field!
For love, for hopeless love of thee
My reason must her kingdom yield" ...
Good heavens! It was Algernon Fitzclarence!
"Across the land, across the main,
A single steed shall bear us twain."
He was ascending by a ladder! His face appeared at the window!
"Ah, darling Agatha," he said, "news was brought me of thy parlous state! But dry thy tears, my sweet! See"—he snapped the massive bars with the little finger of his left hand—"the cage is broken. Two of the swiftest Singers are saddled for us at the castle gate. Let us fly together!"
Noiselessly the gallant steeds flitted along the road.
"Were't not best to light our lamps?" whispered Agatha. "Methinks that the sage councillors of the parish——"