The Tangled Skein

"Everything!" she said.

Everything! that is to say, his sin, his mistrust of her, his great passionate love, and self-sacrifice for her. Everything! which meant her own love, her own devotion, her joy to find him true and chivalrous, her happiness and her hope.

Mary Tudor saw the look and its response from Wessex' eyes. She saw the end of the one dream which had filled her dull, rigid life and rendered it hopeful and bright. But she was above all a Tudor. She accepted the dictate of Fate, she bent the neck to a greater will than her own, and closed the book of her illusions, never to peruse its pages again. One last look at the man who had had the one passion of which her strange hard heart was capable, one short farewell to the vague hope, which until now would not be gainsaid.

From now and to the end of her days she would be Queen alone – the woman lay buried amongst the autumn leaves which strewed the walks of old Hampton Court Palace.

As Queen now she once more turned to Ursula. Justice in her demanded that every wrong should be righted, every misdoer punished.

"Child," she said quietly, "it was not you then who was with Don Miguel?"

"No, Your Majesty," replied Ursula, returning to earth at sound of the Queen's kindly voice, "Lady Alicia tells me that a girl.. a poor, sad girl, was in face so like to me.. that His Grace must have been mistaken.. and."

"But, child.. then why have told a lie?."

"His Eminence told me what to say before the Court, and promised His Grace would be saved by it."

Her voice dropped to so low a murmur that no one heard it but the Queen.. and Wessex.

"I did it to save him!"

"A lie, Your Majesty," protested the Cardinal.

"The truth!" protested Ursula loudly. "I pray Your Majesty to look on me and him and see on whose face is writ the word – fear."

Almost as if in obedience to Ursula's words Mary Tudor turned and faced the Spanish Cardinal. He tried to meet her look boldly. Even in defeat there was a certain grandeur in this man.

He had staked and lost his own position, his future career, his hopes of a greater destiny, but he had succeeded in his schemes. He knew Mary Tudor well enough to rejoice in this – that she would never now break her word to Philip, even though she let the flood of her royal wrath fall full heavily upon him.

"Go back, my lord, to your royal master," said Queen Mary with lofty contempt. "My word is my bond, and my pledge to him is sacred; but tell him, an he wishes to win the heart of the Queen of England, he must send an honest man to woo her."

Then without another glance at him, without looking to see if he followed her or not, she beckoned to her ladies and gentlemen, her attendants and her courtiers, and, without once turning her royal head towards the spot where had died her happiness, she walked firmly in the direction of her Palace.

CHAPTER XLI

THE END

And now every one had gone.

The wintry sun was already sinking towards the west, faint purple shadows wrapped the alleys and bosquets of the park in dim and ghostly arms.

The last call of a belated robin broke the silence of the gathering dusk, then it too was silenced, and only the "hush – sh – sh – sh" of fallen leaves on the gravelled path murmured a soft accompaniment to the music of the night.

A man and a woman were alone beside the marble basin, face to face, eye to eye, yet finding not one word to say. Both had so much to atone for, so much to forgive, that mere words were but the poor expression of all that filled their hearts.

The moments sped on – a few brief seconds or an eternity, who can say which?

The shadows merged one in the other. Far away the river murmured gently.

Now Wessex had sunk on his knees, and she bent down to him.

All the birds had gone to rest; one by one, pale winter stars peeped down upon the gorgeous Palace, the majestic pile which had seen so many glories, hidden so many miseries, one by one they peeped down on the silent park, the mysterious river, the ghostly outlines of walls and cupolas.

But beside the marble basin two human hearts had found one another, soul had gone out to soul at last, and Ursula lay once more in the arms of her future lord.