Doubtless thou hast heard by now of how all mischance and disaster befell the adventure.  For myself, who was thy friend, I will show thee in lines of thy own making what men hereafter (and justly) will say of me who am thy friend no longer: 

“His death-bed peacock’s folly.  His winding-sheet is shame.  His will, false-seeming wholly.  His sole executor blame.”

Lo!  I have given space enough to a coward’s epitaph.  Of our friendship of old I will speak no farther than to cry to its fleeing shadow for one last favor—­then all’s past.

I wish to have speech, alone, with Mistress Damaris Sedley.  It must be quickly, for I know not what the Queen’s disposition of me may be.  For God’s sake, Philip Sidney, get me this!  I am not yet under arrest—­I am hard by the Palace, at the Bell Inn.—­You may effect it if you will.  God knows you have a silver tongue and she a heart of gold!  I trust her to give me speech with her as I trust you to find the way.

Time was, thy friend; time is, thy suppliant only.

MORTIMER FERNE.

O Sidney, Sidney!  I am not altogether base!

The maid of honor folded the letter, keeping it, however, in her hand.  Her companion, turning towards her, chanced to see her face of sombre horror, of wide, tearless eyes, and would look no more.  To themselves the two were modern of the moderns, ranked in the forefront of the present; courtier, statesman, and poet of the day, exquisite maid of honor whose every hour convention governed,—­yet the face upon which in one revealing moment he had gazed seemed not less old than the face of Helen—­of Medea—­of Ariadne; not less old and not less imperishably beautiful.  Neither spoke of her idyll turned to a crowder’s song.  Knowing that there were no words which she could bear, he waited, his mind filled with deep pity, hers with God knows what complexity, what singleness of feeling, until at last a low sound—­no intelligible word—­came from her throat.  The plumed fan dropped the length of its silken cord, and her hands went out for help that should yet be voiceless, assuming everything, expressing nothing.  He met her call, as three years later he met, at Zutphen, the agony of envy, the appeal against intolerable thirst, in the eyes of a common soldier.

“No command concerning him has yet been given,” he said, gently.  “I sent him mask and cloak—­he came by yonder way,—­met me here....  There were few words....  His humor is that of glancing steel.”

“That is as it should be,” answered the maid of honor.

Her companion parted the hangings which separated the two from the gallery.  “He awaits behind yonder door where stands the boy.”  Ceremoniously he took her hand and led her to an entrance beside which leaned a slender lad in a ragged blue jerkin and hose.  “Robin, you will watch yonder at the great doors.  Sweet lady, I stand here, and none shall enter.  But remember that the time is short—­at any moment the gallery may fill.”