'Tis done! and so she droops. Oh, woman-heart!
How bold and brave to do thy destined part!
Thro' sorrow's waves press firmly, calmly on,
And pause not, sink not, till the goal is won!
MS.
Not a word passed between them, until they had reached Isabella's
private cabinet; and even then the Queen--though she seated herself
and signed to the boy to stand before her, as desirous of addressing
him--asked not a question, but fixed her penetrating eyes on his
pallid features, with a look in which severity was very evidently
struggling, with commiseration and regard. To attempt to retain
disguise was useless; Marie flung aside the shrouding hood, and
sinking down at the Queen's feet, buried her face in her robe, and
murmured in strong emotion--
"Gracious Sovereign--mercy!"
"Again wouldst thou deceive, again impose upon me, Marie? What am I
to think of conduct mysterious as thine? Wherefore fly from my
protection--reject with ingratitude the kindness I would have
proffered--mistrust the interest which thou hadst already proved,
and then return as now? I promised forgiveness, and continuation of
regard, if the truth were revealed and mystery banished, and darker
than ever has thy conduct drawn the veil around thee. What urged thy
flight, and wherefore this disguise? Speak out, and truthfully; we
will be tampered with no longer!"
But Marie vainly tried to obey; her brain was burning; the rapid ride,
the sudden transition, from the sickening horror of being too late,
to the assurance of Stanley's safety, the thought that she had indeed
parted from him for ever, and now Isabella's evident anger, when her
woman-heart turned to her as a child's to its mother's, yearning
for that gentle sympathy which, at such a moment, could alone have
soothed. Words seemed choked within her, and the effort to speak
produced only sobs. Isabella's eyes filled with tears.
"Speak," she said, more gently; "Marie--say only why thou didst fly
me, when I had given no evidence, that the boon thou didst implore me
to grant, had become, by thy strange confession, null and void. What
urged thy flight?"
"Not my own will. Oh, no--no, gracious Sovereign; I would have
remained a contented prisoner with thee, but they bore me away to such
scenes and sounds of horror that their very memory burns my brain. Oh,
madam! do with me what thou wilt, but condemn me not to return to that
fearful place again. Death, death itself--ay, even such a death as
Arthur has escaped--were mercy in its stead!"
"Of what speakest thou, Marie? Who could have dared bear thee from our
protection without thine own free will? Thy mind has been overwrought
and is bewildered still; we have been harsh, perchance, to urge thee
to speak now: repose may--".
"Repose! Oh, no--no; let me remain with thee!" she sobbed, as
forgetful of either state or form, her head sunk on Isabella's knee.
"He has borne me from your highness' power once; he can, he may, I
know he will again. Oh, save me from him! It was not because of my
faith he bore me there, and tempted and tortured and laughed at my
agony; he taunted me with his power to wreak the vengeance of a
baffled passion upon me--for, as a Jewess, who would protect me? Oh,
mighty Sovereign! send me not from thy presence. Don Luis will take me
from thy very roof again."
"Don Luis!" repeated Isabella, more and more convinced that Marie's
sufferings had injured her brain. "What power can he have, so secret
and so terrible? Marie, thou ravest!"
"Do I rave?" replied the unhappy girl, raising her right hand to her
throbbing brow. "It may be so; perhaps it has all been a dream--a wild
and fearful dream!--and I am awakened from it now; and yet--yet how
can it be; how came my arm thus if it had not been reality--horrible,
agonizing reality!" And as she spoke she removed the covering from
her left arm. Painfully Isabella started: the beautiful limb hung
powerless from wrist to shoulder, a dry and scorched and shrievelled
bone.
"And couldst thou think thy Sovereign would ordain, or even permit,
such suffering?" she exclaimed, after a moment's pause, passing her
arm fondly round Marie, whom she had raised from the ground to a
cushion by her side. "My poor unhappy child, what is this dark
mystery? Who can have dared to injure thee, and call it justice,
zeal--religion, perchance! Mother of Mercy! pardon the profanation of
the word! Try and collect thy thoughts, and tell me all. Who has dared
thus insult our power?"
"Don Luis!--Don Luis!" repeated Marie, clinging like an infant to the
Queen, and shuddering with terror at the very recollection of a power
which she had faced so calmly. "Oh, save me from him! torture itself I
could bear, but not his words."
"Don Luis!" reiterated the astonished Queen. "What has he to do with
torture? Who is he--what is he, my poor child, that his very name
should thus appal thee? He may indeed have dared speak insulting
words, but what power has he thus fearfully to wreak his vengeance?"
"Who is he--what is he?" repeated Marie, looking with surprise in
the Queen's pitying face. "Does not your highness know--and yet how
shouldst thou?--his very office is as secret as his own black nature?
Has your highness never heard men whisper of a secret Inquisition,
hiding itself even in thy domains? Oh, my Sovereign, it was there they
dragged me! [her voice sunk to a low shuddering whisper] and he was
grand master there; he--even Don Luis! And he will bear me there
again. Oh, save me from those fearful sounds--those horrid sights:
they glare before me now!"
"And I will save thee, my child! ay, and root out these midnight
horrors from my kingdom," exclaimed Isabella, indignation flashing in
her eye, and flushing on her cheek. "Once we have been insulted--once
deceived; but never to us can such occur a second time. Fearfully
shall this deed of infamy recoil upon its perpetrators! Tremble not
thus, my poor girl, no one shall injure thee; no one can touch thee,
for we are warned, and this fearful tale shall be sifted to the
bottom! Child of a reprobate faith, and outcast race as thou art,
thinkest thou that even to thee Isabella would permit injury and
injustice? If we love thee too well, may we be forgiven, but cared for
thou shalt be; ay, so cared for, that there shall be joy on earth, and
in heaven for thee yet!"
At another moment, those words would have been understood in their
real meaning; but Marie could then only feel the consoling conviction
of security and love. It was not merely personal kindness which had
so bound her to her Sovereign; it was the unacknowledged but felt
conviction, that Isabella had penetrated her secret feelings, with
regard to Arthur Stanley; and yet not a syllable of this had ever
passed the Queen's lips. Oh, true sympathy seldom needs expression,
for its full consolation to be given and received! The heart
recognizes intuitively a kindred heart, and turns to it in its sorrow
or its joy, conscious of finding in it, repose from itself. But only
a woman can give to woman this perfect sympathy; for the deepest
recesses, the hidden sources of anguish in the female heart no man can
read.
Engrossed as Isabella was by the mysterious information imparted by
Marie, indefinitely yet forcibly confirmed by her, then unusual,
knowledge of the past history of Spain, she was more easily satisfied
with Marie's hurried and hesitating account of her escape, than she
might otherwise have been. To proclaim her relationship with Father
Ambrose was ruin to him at once. He had been one, she said with truth,
who had received great obligations from her family, and had vowed
to return them whenever it should be in his power so to do; he had,
therefore, made the exertion to save her, and was about taking her to
her childhood's home on the frontiers of Castile, the only place, it
appeared to him, sufficiently secret to conceal her from Don Luis's
thousand spies; but that on the providential discovery of the real
murderer, and the seeming impossibility of ever seeing the King
himself in time--she paused.
"Could he send thee on such a rapid errand, my child, and suffering
thus?" gently inquired Isabella.
"No, gracious madam," was the unhesitating rejoinder, though a burning
blush mounted to her very temples; "it was my own voluntary choice. It
was my unhappy fate to have been the actual cause of his arraignment;
it was but my duty to save him if I could."
"And thou wouldst have returned with Perez had we not penetrated thy
disguise?"
"Yes, gracious Sovereign." And the flush faded into paleness, ashy as
before; but the tone was calm and firm.
The Queen looked at her intently, but made no further observation; and
speedily summoning her before trusted attendants, placed the widow of
Morales once more in their charge; imparted to them as much of Marie's
tale as she deemed requisite, and the consequent necessity for her
return to the Queen's care; nay, her very existence was to be kept
secret from all save those to whom she herself should choose to impart
it. Gratified by her confidence, they were eager to obey; and so
skilfully did they enter into her wishes, that their very companions
suspected not the identity of the prisoner, in whom, they were told,
their Sovereign was so much interested. Curiosity might have been busy
with very many, but their vague conjectures fell far short of the
truth; Catharine Pas was the only one of Isabella's younger maidens to
whom the real fact was imparted.