the rushes and tried to warm herself. Something among the ashes drew
her attention. In went her hand, and out came a charred end of
velvet ribbon.

She sat before the fire for some time, dully conscious of sound and
movement in the gallery without, but caring nothing. When at last she
arose and left the room all was quiet enough, and she reached her own
chamber unmolested. Towards evening Cecily, fluttering in after long
hours of attendance, found her in her night-rail, half kneeling beside
the bed, half fallen upon the floor.... The Countess of Pembroke was not
at court, and there was none besides whom Cecily cared or dared to call;
so, terrified, she watched out the night beside a Damaris she had
never known.

Philip Sidney's low voice had been urgent, and the man who owed to him a
perilous assignation made no tarrying. With his cloak drawn about his
face, and his hand busy with the small black mask, he passed swiftly
along the gallery towards the door through which he had obtained
entrance and where Sidney now waited with an anxious brow. It was too
late. Suddenly before him, at the head of a short flight of stairs, the
massive leaves of the great doors swung open and halberdiers
appeared--beyond them a confused yet stately approach of sound and color
and indistinguishable forms. The halberdiers advanced, a double line
forming an aisle for the passage of some brilliant throng, and cutting
off the door of escape. Ferne looked over his shoulder. From doors now
opened at the farther end of the gallery people were entering, were
ranging themselves along the walls. There was a glimpse of a crowd
without; beyond them, the palace stairs and the silver Thames. A trumpet
blew, and the crowd shouted, _God save the Queen!_