John Bloundelle-Burton

“ The hope, coupled with a prayer that she and Sylvia might be in time to save Bevill from the fate that still must threaten him, if already the worst had not befallen--the prayer that, at last, he and Sylvia might be happy.
"For," she told herself again as she had done many times before, "they love each other. Let my happiness in this world be to see their happiness; my greatest hope never to lose hope that they may yet be united, since, for me, there can never be any other," and, as these thoughts passed through her mind, the tears fell from her eyes. ”

“ Bevill continued to muse, "what the boy has been; the boy is what the man will become. I doubt me not that as Emile Francbois was, so he is now. Crafty and clever, fawning and malignant. Ready to obtain money by any unclean trick. He knows my name; he will not have forgotten it--if he has, he will soon recall it. If there is aught to be earned by betraying, by denouncing me, then he will do it. I must find the means of silencing him. Yet how? Shall I give him money, or, better still, this," and he fingered the quillon of his sword as thus he meditated.
"So he loves Sylvia, does he?" ”

“ There are a-many who will not forgive me when I am dead."
"Queen Anne reigns, the Earl of Marlborough is at the head of the army. My lord, I want employment; I want to be in this campaign. Oh, cousin Mordaunt," Bevill Bracton said, with a break in his voice, "you cannot know how I desire to be a soldier once again, and fighting for my religion, my country, and the Queen. To be moving, to be a living man--not an idler. I have never parted with this," and he touched the hilt of the sword by his side, "help me; give me the right; find me the way to draw it once more as a soldier." ”

“ My hour is not yet. They are for those others--Francbois, Stuven. My death is to be more noble or, at least, less ignominious. 'Tis true. There is still a chance for me--a chance for life. For her. For our love and happiness together."
Yet in an instant Bevill knew that he had spoken too soon.
As still he gazed below, fascinated by the sight of those awful, hideous things, he saw the man who was in command of this party, a sergeant of the dragoons of Risbourg, look round the courtyard as though in search of something. ”

“ On Lord Bracton's left there is another portrait, the picture of a woman no longer young, her almost grey hair massed above her head, but her eyes clear and bright as when first they gazed on Bevill Bracton in Louvain, while over all her features there is a look of content. By her side stands a youth still in his teens, one so like this woman that none can doubt he is her son.
Facing the entrance hangs a larger picture than all-- that of a handsome man in scarlet and covered with orders and decorations; one whose tranquil features and soft lineaments bespeak calm self-reliance ”

“ Not think of my father's death--my father, an old, grey-haired, feeble man!--in the dungeons of Nîmes--my father, who, had he not thus died, would have been broken on the wheel. Not think of that! Nor, perhaps of my husband----"
"Oh, Radegonde!"
"----sent to the galleys, beaten, driven to his doom even as he sat lashed to the oar. He! young, gallant, an honest, God-fearing man! And all for what? For what? Because they and thousands like them--all good and true subjects of this tyrant Louis, of this priest-ridden, woman-ridden Louis--did but wish to worship in their own way! ”

“ While, as for De Guise, duke and peer of France though he might be, with, in his veins, the old illustrious blood of Lorraine and Burgundy--what would he not have given to hear one woman utter that cry on his behalf from the depths of her heart? He who might, doubtless, obtain such avowals from many a nobly born woman hovering round the garish, bizarre Court of the great King, yet would, in doing so, scarce be able to bring himself to believe in the truth of even one of them.
Some days had passed since Bevill had heard his doom pronounced by De Violaine in a voice full of emotion ”

“ Bevill whispered back. "If I have met my fate"--while, as he spoke, he heard a moan, which was in truth a gasp, from Sylvia's lips, and felt her hand tighten convulsively on his--"I have brought it on myself; I can meet it boldly. I set myself to do this thing, looking for a reward, though never dreaming how fair a reward might at last be mine," he added, with a glance beyond the Comtesse to where Sylvia was. "If I have lost shall I not pay the stake, shall I not look ill-fortune bravely in the face?" ”

“ If for no other reason than for the one that, while we remain, he will not go himself. And, ah! he is too brave, too noble, to have his life sacrificed by us. Is it not so, Sylvia?"
"In very truth it is," the girl replied. "If he remains here he does so at imminent deadly peril to himself; and that must not be. I, at least, will not have it so."
"Nor I," said the Comtesse de Valorme.
"I do aver," Madame Van Ryk said now, with a half-smile upon her sad face, "that Mademoiselle de Scudéry and Madame de Lafayette might have drawn inspiration for one of their romances from you. ”

“ Some spy passing through the land and endeavouring to discover what the English plans may be; some woman who, under an appearance of calm and haughty dignity, seeks for information which she may convey to de Boufflers or Tallard. Yet--how to believe it! Spies look not as she looks; their eyes do not glance into the eyes of those they seek to entrap as hers look into mine when she speaks. It is hard to credit that she should be one, and yet--she is on her road to Liége--Liége that, at present, is in the grasp of France, as so much of all Flanders is now. ”

“ Lord Peterborough said. "Look deep into those eyes and see if any lie is hidden therein; look on those lips and ponder if they are highroads through which falsehood is like to pass."
"It is impossible. If the eyes are the windows of the soul, as poets say, then truth, and naught but truth, shelters behind them. And this is Sylvia Thorne But still--still--I do not comprehend. How shall she bring me before my Lord Marlborough? How advance my hopes and desires? Stands she so high that she has power with him?"
"She is a prisoner of France." ”

“ And the gate is open! Heavens, he is there! The footfall stops. If his suspicions are aroused he will halt at nothing. He will denounce you!"
"Will he? We will see to that. Go back to the room, welcome him as he returns----"
"But you? You! The danger is yours, not mine."
"I am safe. I fear nothing."
"Ah, yes; when he has entered you can escape, can leave by the door. 'Tis so. Farewell until to-morrow. Farewell." And as swiftly as might be, the tall, graceful form of Sylvia sped back to the room while Bevill, crossing the grass plot, entered an arbour at the side of it. ”

“ Well, you shall have enough--enough to help you bravely; to bring you, if Providence watches over you, safely to Liége and before the glances of Sylvia's grey eyes. And, then, Heaven grant you may both get back safely."
"I have no fear. What a man may do I will do. Yet, my lord, one thing alone stands not clearly before my eyes. God, He knows, I go willingly enough to obey your behests, your desires; to, if it may be, help a young maiden to quit a town which may soon be ravaged by war; a town to be, perhaps, held by our enemies for months or even years. ”

“ To him who was most principally concerned--to Bevill Bracton--the proclamation of Sylvia's love came not, however, so much as a surprise--since, had she not loved him, the words she had but hitherto whispered would never have been uttered at all by one so calmly dignified and self-contained as she--as a joy supreme. In the joy, too, was merged an honest, manly pride in having won for himself the love of a woman who nobly, before all present, had not hesitated openly to avow that love. ”

“ De Violaine said now, leaving that question unanswered, "has ever been demanded of me by that woman--by you. Madame, there are some men so lowly, so unheeded in this world, that favours from them are scarce worth accepting or even asking for. Had you ever called on me to do you any service, to give you even my life, the service would have been done, would have been given without a moment's hesitation."
"How he dwells on the word life!" the Comtesse said to herself. "How he shields himself behind it! Because he knows there is another word neither of us dares utter." ”

“ No good! no good! Marlborough will not be there. The war may roll, must roll, towards Spain, yet 'tis not in Spain that he will be. But Holland--Brabant--Flanders. Ha!" he cried at the two latter names. "Brabant--Flanders. And--why did I not think of it?--she is there, and there's the chance, and--and, fool that I am! for the moment I had forgotten it."
"She! The chance! Brabant! Flanders!" Bevill Bracton repeated, the words stumbling over each other in his excitement. "She! Who? And what have I to do with women--with any woman? I, who wish to do all a man may do in the eyes of men?" ”

“ The miniature, a large one, displayed a full, or almost full length portrait of a young woman of striking beauty. It depicted a young woman whose head was not yet disfigured by any wig, so that the dark chestnut hair, in which there was now and again a glint of that ruddy gold such as the old Venetians loved to paint, waved free and unconfined above her forehead. And the eyes were as Bevill Bracton recalled them, grey, and shrouded with long dark lashes. Only, now, they were the eyes of a woman, or one who was close on the threshold of womanhood, and not those of a little child ”

“ He is no spy; but, if he were, is a spy worse than a traitor?"
De Violaine started as she uttered these words, since he remembered how the same thought, the same question, had arisen in his own mind that very day; then in reply he said:
"Each is an evil thing--contemned by all honourable men. Yet one man's evil-doing does not justify that of another."
"That is undoubted. Yet listen. This man," her eyes on Bevill, "is no spy; this one," and they fell with withering contempt on Francbois, "is a traitor." ”