A noble presence moving in the full lustre of sovereignty, a princess who, despite all womanish faults, was a wise king unto her people, a maiden ruler to whom in that aftermath of chivalry men gave a personal regard, rose-colored and fanciful; the woman not above coquetry, vanity, and double-dealing, the monarch whose hand was heavy upon the council board, whose will perverted law, whose prime wish was the welfare of her people—­she drew near to the man to whom she had shown fair promise of settled favor, but to whose story, told by his Admiral and commented upon by those about her, she had that day listened between bursts of her great oaths and with an ominous flashing of jewels upon her hands.

Now her quick glance singled him out from the lesser folk with whom he stood.  She colored sharply, took two or three impetuous steps, then, indignant, stayed with her lifted hand the progress of her train.  Ferne knelt.  In the sudden silence Elizabeth’s voice, shaken with anger, made itself heard through half the length of the gallery.

“What make you here?  Who has dared to do this—­to place this man here?”

“Myself alone, madam,” answered quickly the man at her feet.  With a motion of his hand he indicated the long cloak beside him.  “I had but made entrance into the gallery—­I was taken unawares—­”

“Hast a knife beneath your cloak?” burst forth the Queen.  “I hear that right royally you gave my subjects’ lives to the Spaniard.  There’s a death that would more greatly please those that mastered you!...  Answer me!”

“I have no words,” said Ferne, in a low voice.  As he spoke he raised his head and looked Majesty in the face.

Again Elizabeth colored, and her jewels shook and sparkled.  “If not that, what then?” she cried.  “God’s death!  Is’t the Spanish fashion to wear disgrace as a favor?  Again, sir, what do you here?”

“I came as a ghost might come,” answered Ferne.  “Thinks not your Grace that the spirits of disgraced and banished men, or men whose fault, mayhap, brought forfeiture of their lives, may strain to make return to that spot where they felt no guilt, where they were greatly happy?  As such an one might come and no man see him, hurt or to be hurt of him, so came I, restless, a thing of naught, a shade drawn to look once more upon old ways, old walls, the place where once I freely walked.  None brought me; none stayed me, for am I not a ghost?  I only grieve that your Grace’s clear eyes should have marked this shade of what I was, for most unwittingly I, uncommanded, find myself in your Grace’s presence.”  He bent lower, touched the hem of her magnificent robe, and his voice, which had been quite even and passionless, changed in tone.  “For the rest—­whether I am yet to hold myself at your Grace’s pleasure, or whether you give me sentence now—­God save your Majesty and prevent your enemies at home and abroad—­God bring downfall and confusion upon the Spaniard and all traitors who abet him—­God save Queen Elizabeth!”