CHAPTER XII
THE TIDINGS AT THE TOWER
They debated as they stood on the steps in the sunlight five minuteslater, as to whether they should go straight to the Tower, or back toCharing and take Beatrice with them. They spoke softly to one another,as men that have come out from darkness to light, bewildered by thesense of freedom and freshness that lay round them. Instead of themusk-scented rooms, the formidable dominating presence, the suspense andthe terror, the river laughed before them, the fresh summer breeze blewup it, and above all Ralph was free, and that, not only of his prison,but of his hateful work. It had all been done in those few sentences;but as yet they could not realise it; and they regarded it, as theyregarded the ripples at their feet, the lapping wherry, and far-offLondon city, as a kind of dazzling picture which would by and bye befound to move and live.
The lawyer congratulated them, and they smiled back and thanked him.
"If you will put me to shore at London Bridge," said Mr. Herries--"Ihave a little business I might do there--that is, if you will be goingso far."
Chris looked at his father, whose arm he was holding.
"We must take her with us," he said. "She has earned it."
Sir James nodded, dreamily, and turned to the boat.
"To the London Bridge Stairs first," he said.
* * * * *
There was a kind of piquant joy in their hearts as they crept up pastthe Tower, and saw its mighty walls and guns across the water. He wasthere, but it was not for long. They would see him that day, andto-morrow--to-morrow at the latest, they would all leave it together.
There were a hundred plans in the old man's mind, as he leaned gentlyforward and back to the motion of the boat and stared at the brightwater. Ralph and he should live at Overfield again; his son would surelybe changed by all that had come to him, and above all by his ownresponse to the demands of loyalty. They should learn to understand oneanother better now--better than ever before. The hateful life lay behindthem of distrust and contempt; Ralph would come back to his old self,and be again as he had been ten years back before he had been dazzledand drugged by the man who was to die next day. Then he thought of thatman, and half-pitied him even then; those strong walls held nothing butterror for him--terror and despair; the scaffold was already going up onTower Hill--and as the old man thought of it he leaned forward and triedto see over the wharf and under the trees where the rising ground lay;but there was nothing to be seen--the foliage hid it.
Chris, also silent beside him, was full of thoughts. He would go abroadnow, he knew, with Margaret, as they had intended. The King's order wasthe last sign of God's intention for him. He would place Margaret withher own sisters at Bruges, and then himself go on to Dom Anthony andtake up the life again. He knew he would meet some of his old brethrenin Religion--Dom Anthony had written to say that three or four hadalready joined him at Cluny; the Prior--he knew--had turned his back forever on the monastic life, and had been put into a prebendal stall atLincoln.
And meanwhile he would have the joy of knowing that Ralph was free ofhis hateful business; the King would not employ him again; he would liveat home now, and rule Overfield well: he and his father together. Ah!and what if Beatrice consented to rule it with him! Surely now--Heturned and looked at his father as he thought of it, and their eyes met.
Chris leaned a little closer.
"Beatrice!" he said. "What if she--?"
The old man nodded tenderly, and his drawn eyes shone in his face.
"Oh! Chris--I was thinking that--"
Then Nicholas came out of his maze.
Ever since his entrance into the palace, except when he had flared outat the King, he had moved and stood and sat in a solemn bewilderment.The effect of the changed atmosphere had been to paralyse his simple andsturdy faculties; and his face had grown unintelligent during theprocess. More than once Chris had been seized with internal laughter, inspite of the tragedy; the rustic squire was so strangely incongruouswith the situation. But he awoke now.
"God bless me!" he said wonderingly. "It is all over and done. God--"
Chris gave a short yelp of laughter.
"Dear Nick," he said, "yes. God bless you indeed! You spoke up well!"
"Did I do right, sir," said the other to Sir James, "I could not helpit. I--"
"Oh! Nick," said the old man, and leaned forward and put his hand on hisknee.
Nicholas preened himself as he sat there; he would tell Mary how he hadbearded his Majesty, and what a diplomatist was her husband.
"You did very well, sir," put in Mr. Herries ironically. "You terrifiedhis Grace, I think."
Chris glanced at the lawyer; but Nicholas took it all with the greatestcomplacency; tilted his hilt a little forward, smoothed his doublet, andsat smiling and well-pleased.
They reached the Stairs presently and put Mr. Herries ashore.
"I will be at your house to-morrow, sir," he said, "when you go to takeMr. Ralph out of prison. The order will be there by the morning, I makeno doubt."
He bowed and smiled and moved off, a stiff figure deliberately pickingits way up the oozy steps to the crowded street overhead.
* * * * *
Beatrice's face was at the window as they came up the tide half-an-hourlater. Chris stood up in the wherry, when he saw it, and waved his capfuriously, and the face disappeared.
She was at the landing stage before they reached it, a slender brilliantfigure in her hood and mantle, with her aunt beside her. Chris stood upagain and cried between his hands across the narrowing space that allwas well; and her face was radiant as the boat slipped up to the side,and balanced there with the boatman's hand on the stone edging.
"It is all well," said Chris again as he stood by her a moment later."He is to go free, and we are to tell him."
He dared not look at her; but he was aware that she stood very still andrigid, and that her eyes were on his father's.
"Oh! Mistress Beatrice--"
Chris began to understand it all a little better, a few minutes later,as the boat was once again on its way downstream. He and Nicholas hadmoved to the bows of the wherry, and the girl and the old man sat alonein the stern.
They were all very silent at first; Chris leaned on his elbow and staredout at the sliding banks, the trees on this side and that, the greathouses with their high roofs and towers behind, and their stone steps infront, the brilliant glare on the water, the hundreds of boats--greatbarges flashing jewels from their dozen blades, spidery wherries makingthis way and that; and his mind was busy weaving pictures. He saw it allnow; there had been that in Beatrice's face during the moment he hadlooked at her, that was more than sympathy. In the shock of that greatjoy the veils had fallen, and her soul had looked out through her blacktearful eyes.
There was little doubt now as to what would happen. It was not for theirsake alone, or for Ralph's, that she had looked like that; she had notsaid one word, but he knew what was unspoken.
As they passed under London Bridge he turned a little and looked acrossthe boatmen's shoulder at the two as they sat there in the stern, andwhat he saw confirmed him. The old man had flung an arm along the backof the seat, and was leaning a little forward, talking in a low voice,his face showing indeed the lines and wrinkles that had deepened morethan ever during these last weeks, but irradiated with an extraordinaryjoy. And the girl was beside him, smiling with downcast eyes, turning aquick look now and again as she sat there. Chris could see her scarletlips trembling, and her hands clasped on her knee, shifting a little nowand again as she listened. It was a strange wooing; the father courtingfor the son, and the woman answering the son through the father; andChris understood what was the answer that she was giving.
Nicholas was watching it too; and presently the two in the stern lookedup suddenly; first Beatrice and then Sir James, and their eyes flashedjoy across and across as the four souls met.
* * * * *
Mr. Morris, who had been sent on by Mistress Jane Atherton when she hadheard the news, was there holding his horse by the bridle; and behindhim had collected a little crowd of idlers. He gave the bridle to one ofthem, and came down the steps to help them out of the boat.
"You have heard?" said Chris as he stepped out last.
"Yes, father," said the servant.
Chris looked at him; and his mask-like face too seemed strangely lightedup. There was still across his cheek the shadow of a mark as of an oldwhip-cut.
As they passed up the steps they became aware that the little crowd thathad waited at the top was only the detached fringe of a multitude thathad assembled further up the slope. It stretched under the trees as faras they could see to right and left, from the outer wall of the Tower onthe one side, to where the rising ground on the left was hidden underthe thick foliage in the foreground. There was a murmur of talking andlaughter, the ringing of hand-bells, the cracking of whips and the criesof children. The backs of the crowd were turned to the steps: there wasplainly something going on higher up the slope, and it seemed somewhataway to the left.
For a moment Chris did not understand, and he turned to Morris.
"What is it?" he asked.
"The scaffold," said the servant tersely.
At the same moment high above the murmur of the crowd came the sound ofheavy resounding blows, as of wood on wood.
Then Chris remembered; and for one moment he sickened as he walked. Hisfather turned and looked over his shoulder as he went with Beatrice infront, and his eyes were eloquent.
"I had forgotten," said Chris softly. "God help him!"
* * * * *
They turned in towards the right almost immediately to the low outergate of the fortress; and those for the first time remembered that theorder they carried was for four only.
Nicholas instantly offered to wait outside and let Morris go in. Morrisflatly refused. There was a short consultation, and then Nicholas wentup to the sentry on guard with the order in his hand.
The man looked at it, glanced at the party, and then turned and knockedwith his halberd on the great door behind, and in a minute or two anofficer came out in his buff and feathers. He took the order and ran hiseyes over it.
Nicholas explained.
The officer looked at him a moment without answering.
"And the lady too?" he said.
"Why, yes," said Nicholas.
"The lady wishes--" then he broke off. "You will have to see theLieutenant," he went on. "I can let you all through to his lodgings."
They passed in with a yeoman to conduct them under the low heavyvaulting and through to the open way beyond. On their right was the wallbetween them and the river, and on their left the enormous towers andbattlements of the inner court.
Chris walked with Morris behind, remembering the last time he was herewith the Prior all those years before. They had walked silently then,too, but for another reason.
They passed the low Traitor's Gate on their right; Chris glanced at thegreen lapping water beneath it as he went--Ralph had landed there--andturned up the steep slope to the left under the gateway of the innercourt; and in a minute or two more were at the door of the Lieutenant'slodgings.
There seemed a strange suggestiveness in the silence and order of thewide ward that lay before them. The great White Tower dominated thewhole place on the further side, huge and menacing, pierced by itsnarrow windows set at wide intervals; on the left, the row of towersused as prisons diminished in perspective down to where the wall turnedat right angles and ran in behind the keep; and the great space enclosedby the whole was almost empty. There were soldiers on guard here andthere at the doorways; a servant hurried across the wide sunlit ground,and once, as they waited, a doctor in his short gown came out of onedoor and disappeared into another.
And here they waited for an answer to their summons, silent and happy intheir knowledge. The place held no terrors for them.
The soldier knocked again impatiently, and again stood aside.
Chris saw Nicholas sidle up to the man with something of the same awe onhis face that had been there an hour ago.
"My Lord--Master Cromwell?" he heard him whisper, correcting himself.
The man jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
"There," he said.
There were three soldiers, Chris noticed, standing at the foot of one ofthe Towers a little distance off. It was there, then, that ThomasCromwell, wool-carder, waited for death, hearing, perhaps, from hiswindow the murmur of the crowd beyond the moat, and the blows of malleton wood as his scaffold went up.
Then the door opened, and after a word or two the soldier motioned themin.
* * * * *
Again they had to wait.
The Lieutenant, they were told, had been called away. He was expectedback presently.
They sat down, still in silence, in the little ground-floor parlour. Itwas a pleasant little room, with a wide hearth, and two windows lookingon to the court.
But the suspense was not like that of the morning. Now they knew how itmust end. There would be a few minutes more, long perhaps to Ralph, ashe sat in his cell somewhere not far from them, knowing nothing of thepardon that was on its way; and then the door would open, where day byday for the last six weeks the gaoler had come and gone; and the faceshe knew would be there, and it would be from their lips that he wouldhear the message.
The old man and the girl still sat together in the window-seat, silentnow like the others. They had had their explanations in the boat, andeach knew what was in the other's heart. Chris and Nicholas stood by thehearth, Mr. Morris by the door; and there was not the tremor of a doubtin any of them as to what the future held.
Chris looked tranquilly round the room, at the little square table inthe centre, the four chairs drawn close to it, with their brocadepanels stained and well-worn showing at the back, the dark ceiling, thepiece of tapestry that hung over the side-table between the doors--itwas a martial scene, faded and discoloured, with ghostly bare-leggedknights on fat prancing horses all in inextricable conflict, a greatbattleaxe stood out against the dusky foliage of an autumn tree; and astag with his fore feet in the air, ramped in the foreground, lookingover his shoulder. It was a ludicrously bad piece of work, picked up nodoubt by some former Lieutenant who knew more of military than artisticmatters, and had hung there--how long? Chris wondered.
He found himself criticising it detail by detail, comparing it with hisown designs in the antiphonary; he had that antiphonary still at home;he had carried it off from Lewes, when Ralph--Ralph!--had turned himout. He had put it up into a parcel on the afternoon of the spoilers'arrival. He would show it to Ralph again now--in a day or two atOverfield; they would laugh over it together; and he would take it withhim abroad, and perhaps finish it there. God's work is not so easilyhindered after all.
But all the while, the wandering stream of his thought was lighted andpenetrated by the radiant joy of his heart. It was all true, not adream!
He glanced again at the two in the window-seat.
His father was looking out of the lattice; but Beatrice raised her eyesto his, and smiled at him.
Sir James stood up.
"The Lieutenant is coming," he said.
A moment later there were steps in the flagged passage; and a murmur ofvoices. The soldier who had brought them to the lodgings was waitingthere with the order of admission, and was no doubt explaining thecircumstances.
Then the door opened suddenly; and a tall soldierly-looking man,grey-haired and clean-shaven, in an officer's dress, stood there, withthe order in his hand, as the two in the window-seat rose to meet him.
"Master Torridon," he said abruptly.
Sir James stepped forward.
"Yes, sir."
"You have come to see Mr. Ralph Torridon whom we have here?"
"Yes, sir--my
son."
Nicholas stepped forward, and the Lieutenant nodded at him.
"Yes, sir," said the officer to him, "I could not admit you before--" hestopped, as if embarrassed, and turned to Beatrice.
"And this lady too?"
"Yes, Master Lieutenant," said the old man.
"But--but--I do not understand--"
He looked at the radiant faces before him, and then dropped his eyes.
"I suppose--you have not heard then?"
Chris felt his heart leap, and then begin to throb furiously andinsistently. What had happened? Why did the man look like that? Why didhe not speak?
The Lieutenant came a step forward and put his hand on the table. He waslooking strangely from face to face.
Outside the court was very still. The footstep that had passed on theflagstones a minute before had ceased; and there was no sound but thechirp of a bird under the eaves.
"You have not heard then?" said the Lieutenant again.
"Oh! for God's sake--" cried the old man suddenly.
"I have just come from your son," said the other steadily. "You are onlyjust in time. He is at the point of death."
CHAPTER XIII
THE RELEASE
It was morning, and they still sat in Ralph's cell.
* * * * *
The attendant had brought in stools and a tall chair with a broken back,and these were grouped round the low wooden bed; the old man in thechair on one side, from where he could look down on his son's face, withBeatrice beside him, Chris and Nicholas on the other side. Mr. Morriswas everywhere, sitting on a form by the door, in and out with food andmedicine, at his old master's bedside, lifting his pillow, turning himin bed, holding his convulsive hands.
He had been ill six days, the Lieutenant told them. The doctor who hadbeen called in from outside named the disease _phrenitis_. It wascertain that he would not recover; and a message to that effect had beensent across on the morning before, with the usual reports to Greenwich.
They had supped as they sat--silently--on what the gaoler brought; andhad slept by turns in the tall chair, wakening at a sound from the bed;at the movement of the light across the floor as Morris slipped to andfro noiselessly; at the chirp of the birds and the noises of thestirring City as the daylight broadened on the wall, and the narrowwindow grew bright and luminous.
And now the morning was high, and they were waiting for the end.
* * * * *
A little table stood by the door, white-covered, with two candles,guttering now in their sockets, and a tall crucifix, ivory and black,lifting its arms in the midst. Before it stood two veiled vessels.
"He will speak before he passes," the doctor had told them the eveningbefore; "I do not know whether he will be able to receive Viaticum."
* * * * *
Chris raised himself a little in his chair--he was stiff with leaningelbows on knees; and he stretched out his feet softly; looking downstill at the bed.
His brother lay with his back to him; the priest could see the blackhair, longer than Court fashion allowed now, the brown sinewy neckbeneath; and one arm outlined over his hip beneath the piled clothes.The fingers were moving a little, contracting and loosening, contractingand loosening; and he could hear the long slow breaths.
Beyond sat Beatrice, upright and quiet, one hand in her lap, and theother holding the father's. The old man was bowed with his head on hisother hand, as he had been for the last hour, his back bent forward withthe burden, and his feet crossed before him.
From outside the noises grew louder as the morning advanced. There hadbeen the sound of continual coming and going since it was light. Wheelshad groaned and rattled up out of the distance and ceased abruptly; andthe noise of hoofs had been like an endless patter over thestone-paving. And now, as the hours passed a murmur had been increasing,a strange sound like the wind in dry trees, as the huge crowd gathered.
Beatrice raised her eyes suddenly.
The fortress itself which had been quiet till now seemed to awakenabruptly.
The sound seemed to come to them up the stairs, but they had learntduring those hours that all sounds from within came that way. There wasa trumpet-note or two, short and brazen; a tramp of feet for a moment,the throb of drums; then silence again; then the noise of movingfootsteps that came and went in an instant. And as the sound came, Ralphstirred.
He swayed slowly over on to his back; his breath came in little groansthat died to silence again as he subsided, and his arm drew out and layon the bedclothes. Chris could see his face now in sharp profile againstBeatrice's dark skirt, white and sharp; the skin was tightly stretchedover the nose and cheekbones, his long thin lips were slightly open,there was a painful frown on his forehead, and his eyes squintedterribly at the ceiling.
A contraction seized the priest's throat as he watched; the face was atonce so august and so pitiable.
The lips began to move again, as they had moved during the night; itseemed as if the dying man were talking and listening. The eyelidstwitched a little; and once he made a movement as if to rise up. Chriswas down on his knees in a moment, holding him tenderly down; he feltthe thin hands come up and fumble with his own, and noticed lines deepenbetween the flickering eyelids. Then the hands lay quiet.
Chris lifted his eyes and saw his father's face and Beatrice's watching.Something of the augustness of the dying man seemed to rest on the greybearded lips and solemn eyes that looked down. Beatrice's face wassteady and tender, and as the priest's eyes met hers, she nodded.
"Yes, speak to him," she said.
Chris threw a hand across the bed and rested it on the wooden frame, andthen lowered himself softly till his mouth was at the other's ear.
"Ralph," he said, "Ralph, do you hear me?"
Then he raised his face a little and watched.
The eyelids were rising slowly; but they dropped again; and there came alittle faint babbling from the writhing lips; but no words wereintelligible. Then they were silent.
"He hears," said Beatrice softly.
The priest bent low again; and as he did so, from outside came a strangesound, as of a long monstrous groan from a thousand throats. Again thedying man stirred; his hand sought his brother's arm and gripped it witha kind of feeble strength; then dropped again on to the coverlet.
Chris hesitated a moment, and again glanced up; and as he did so, therewas a sound on the stairs. He threw himself back on his heels and lookedround, as the doctor came in with Morris behind him.
He was a stout ruddy man, and moved heavily across the floor; but Ralphseemed not to hear it.
The doctor came to the end of the bed, and stood staring down at thedying man's face, frowning and pursing his lips; Chris watched himintently for some sign. Then he came round by Beatrice, leaned over thebed, and took Ralph's wrist softly into his fingers. He suddenly seemedto remember himself, and turned his face abruptly over his shoulder toSir James.
"There is a man come from the palace," he whispered harshly. "I supposeit is the pardon." And Chris saw him arch his eyebrows and purse hislips again. Then he bent over Ralph once more.
Then again the doctor jerked his head towards the window behind andspoke across to Chris.
"They have him out there," he said; "Master Cromwell, I mean."
Then he rose abruptly.
"He cannot receive Viaticum; and he will not be able to make hisconfession. I should shrive him at once, sir, and anoint him."
"At once?" whispered Chris.
"The sooner the better," said the doctor; "there is no telling."
Chris rose swiftly from his knees, and made a sharp sign to Morris. Thenhe sank down once more, looking round, and lifted the purple stole fromthe floor where he had laid it the evening before; and even as he did sohis soul revolted.
He looked up at Beatrice. Would not she understand the unchivalry of theact? But the will in her eyes compelled him.--Yes, yes! Who could se
t alimit to mercy?
He slipped the strip over his shoulders, and again bent down over hisbrother, with one arm across the motionless body. Beatrice and Sir Jameswere on their knees by now. Nicholas was busy with Morris at the furtherend of the room. The doctor was gone.
There was a profound silence now outside as the priest bent lower andlower till his lips almost touched the ear of the dying man; and everyword of the broken abrupt sentences was audible to all in the room.
"Ralph--Ralph--dear brother. You are at the point of death. I mustshrive you. You have sinned very deeply against God and man. I shallanoint you afterwards. Make an act of sorrow in your heart for all yoursins; it will stand for confession. Think of Jesu's love, and of Hisdeath on the bitter cross--the wounds that He bore for us in love. Giveme a sign if you can that you repent."
Chris spoke rapidly, and leaned back a moment. Now he was terrified ofwaiting--he did not know how long it would be; but for an intent instanthe stared down on the shadowed face.
Again the eyelids flickered; the lips formed words, and ceased again.
The priest glanced up, scarcely knowing why; and then again loweredhimself that if it were possible Ralph might hear.
Then he spoke, with a tense internal effort as if to drive the gracehome....
"_Ego te absolvo ab omnibus censuris et peccatis, in nomine Patris_--"He raised himself a little and lifted his hand, moving it sidewaysacross and down as he ended--"_et Filii et Spiritus Sancti_."
* * * * *
The priest rose up once more, his duty driving his emotion down; he didnot dare to look across at the two figures beyond the bed, or even toquestion himself again as to what he was doing.
The two men at the further end of the room were waiting now; they hadlifted the candles and crucifix off the table, and set them on the benchby the side.
Chris went swiftly across the room, dropped on one knee, rose again,lifted the veiled vessel that stood in the centre, with the little linencloth beneath, and set it all down on the bench. He knelt again, went astep aside back to the table, lifted the other vessel, and signed withhis head.
The two men grasped the ends of the table, and carried it across thefloor to the end of the bed. Chris followed and set down the sacred oilsupon it.
"The cross and one candle," he whispered sharply.
A minute later he was standing by the bed once more.
"_Oremus_--" he began, reading rapidly off the book that Beatrice heldsteadily beneath his eyes.
"_Almighty Everlasting God, who through blessed James Thy Apostle, hastspoken, saying, Is any sick among you, let him call the priests of theChurch_--" (The lips of the dying man were moving again at the sound ofthe words; was it in protest or in faith?)--" ... _that is what is donewithout through our ministry, may be wrought within spiritually by Thydivine power, and invisibly by Thy healing; through our Lord JesusChrist. Amen._"
The lips were moving faster than ever on the pillow; the head wasbeginning to turn from side to side, and the mouth lay open.
"_Usquequo, Domine_" ... began Beatrice.
Chris dipped his thumb in the vessel, and sank swiftly on to his knees.
"_Per istam sanctam Unctionem_"--"_through this holy unction_...."
(The old man leaned suddenly forward on to his knees, and steadied thatrolling head in his two hands; and Chris signed firmly on the eyelids,pressing them down and feeling the fluttering beneath his thumb as hedid so.)
" ... _And His most loving mercy, may the Lord forgive thee whatsoeverthou hast sinned through sight._"
Ah! that was done--dear God! those eyes that had drooped and sneered,that had looked so greedily on treasure--their lids shone now with theloving-kindness of God.
Chris snatched a morsel of wool that Morris put forward from behind,wiped the eyelids, and dropped the fragment into the earthen basin athis side.
"_Per istam sanctam Unctionem_...."
And the ears were anointed--the ears that had listened to Layton'sfilth, to Cromwell's plotting; and to the cries of the oppressed.
The nostrils; the lips that had lied and stormed and accused againstGod's people, compressed now in his father's fingers--they seemed tosneer even now, and to writhe under the soft oil; the hands that hadbeen laid on God's portion, that had torn the vessels from the altar andthe cloth of gold from the treasury--those too were signed now, and laytwitching on the coverlet.
The bed clothes at the foot of the wooden framework were lifted and laidback as Chris passed round to the end, and the long feet, icy cold, werelying exposed side by side.
_Per Istam sanctam Unctionem, et suam piissimam misericordiam, indulgeattibi Domimus quidquid peccasti per incessum pedum. Amen._
Then they too were sealed with pardon, the feet that had been so swiftand unwearied in the war with God, that had trodden the sanctuary in Hisdespite, and trampled down the hearts of His saints--they too weresigned now with the mark of Redemption and lay again under the foldedcoverlet at the end of their last journey.
A convulsion tore at the priest's heart.
* * * * *
Then suddenly in the profound silence outside there broke out anindescribable clamour, drowning in an instant the murmur of prayerswithin. It seemed as if the whole world of men were there, and roaring.The sound poured up through the window, across the moat; the boards ofthe flooring vibrated with the sound. There was the throb of drumspulsating through the long-drawn yell, the screams of women, the barkingof dogs; and a moment later, like some devilish benediction, the bellsof Barking Church pealed out, mellow and jangling, in an exultation ofblood.
Ralph struggled in his bed; his hands rose clutching at his throat,tearing open his shirt before Beatrice's fingers could reach them. Thebreath came swift and hoarse through his open teeth, and his eyelidsflickered furiously. Then they opened, and his face grew quiet, as helooked out across the room.
"My--my Lord!" he said.
THE END.
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