Ferne drew from his doublet a knot of soiled ribbon.  Again he was speaking, but not with the voice he had used before.  “Thy favor....  I have brought it back to thee—­but not stainless, not worn in triumph....  There is a fortress and a town that I see sometimes in a dream, and the governor of them both is a nobleman of Spain—­Don Luiz de Guardiola, Governor of Nueva Cordoba.  He filched from me my honor, but left me life that I might taste death in life.  He set me on the river sands that I might call to the ships I had not sunken and to the comrades I had not slain.  He gave me back my sword that in the cabin of the Mere Honour, in my leader’s presence, I might break the blade in twain.  He restored me this when he had ground it beneath his heel!—­No, no, I will not have you speak!  But was he not a subtle gentleman?...  Now, by your leave, I shall burn the ribbon.”

He crossed to the great fireplace and threw the length of velvet ribbon into a glowing hollow.  It caught and blazed and illuminated his face.  Damaris moved also, groping with her hands for the chair beside the table.  Finding it, she sank down, outstretched her arms upon the board, and bowed her head upon them.  Through the faintness and the leaden horror that weighed her down she heard Ferne’s voice, at first yet monotonous and low, at the last an irrepressible cry of passion: 

“Now there is no longer troth between us, and all thy days, by summer and by winter, thou mayst listen unabashed to tales of such as I. If I am named to thee, thou needst not blush, for now I have seared away that eve above the river, that morn at Penshurst.  And there will be no more singing, and men will soon forget, as thou too—­as thou too must forget!  I loved; I love; but to thy lips and thy dark, dark eyes, and thy whole sweet self I say farewell....  Farewell!”

She was aware of his step beside her; knew that he had lifted the cloak and mask from the table; thought that but for this all-enfolding heaviness she would speak....  The door opened, and Sidney’s voice reached her in a low, peremptory “At once!” A pause that seemed filled with laboring breath, then footsteps passed her; the door closed.  Alone, she rose to her feet, stood for a moment with her hands at her temples, then moved with an uncertain step to the fire, where she sank down upon 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.