Sir John, apprehending some mistake, left the king for a moment to see how matters stood; but Goring had lifted up the arras, and, lo! the knight with the black visor and mantle of silver was not there, neither was the Queen of Beauty in her bower.  The four disconsolate maidens still sat waiting for their cue, and expecting release.  This was an unlooked-for disaster.  The pageant was at a stand.  On inquiry, the maidens told how that the gallant knight and the peerless queen had departed before the king’s arrival, saying they would return anon.

Sir John was bewildered and alarmed.  The Silver Knight was trusty, and no suspicion crossed him from that source; yet was their absence wholly unaccountable.  The king, seeing some mistake in the unravelling or conception of the plot, good-naturedly commanded the minstrels to strike up a favourite tune; at the hearing of which a number of masks immediately mustered to begin dancing in the soft and dewy twilight.  Amongst the rest came in Buckingham, negligently attired, and without his visor.

“I thought thee hidden amongst the maskers,” said the king.

“Ay, my liege, a short space;—­but the night is hot, and I am something distempered and weary in this turmoil.”

Buckingham looked flushed and agitated, strangely differing from his usual manner.  It was not unobserved by the king, who attributed the change to illness.

“Thou shalt continue about our person,” said the monarch.  “Jack, see to the sports:—­the pageant hath suffered greatly from thine absence.  I do think the Queen of Beauty hath played thee false.”

Buckingham took his usual station by the king; and Sir John Finett, in great dolour, went forth in search of his mistress.  He questioned the guests diligently, but could gain no further tidings, save that she had been seen by many in company with the Silver Knight.  Every minute added to his uneasiness:  thoughts of a wild and terrible import haunted him.  In vain he tried to shake off these intruders—­they came like shadows, horrible and indistinct.  His naturally sensitive and sanguine temperament, as prone to the anticipation of evil as of delight, was a curse, and not a blessing.  Departed hopes may fling a deeper shadow even on the brow of Despair!—­and rayless was the night which visited his spirit.  It was now too evident—­for he was no novice in the science—­that his admiration had awakened one dormant but hallowed affection, long lulled in the soft lap of pleasure.  The maiden, with whom it was his sole aim to pass a few hours of pleasantry and amusement, had enthralled him by so sudden a spell, that he was more than half inclined to believe in the boasted skill and exploits of the sex, which has rendered Lancashire so famous.  Her unaccountable absence impressed itself strangely upon his thoughts.  He was in love!—­and he writhed at the discovery; but he would have given worlds just then to have proclaimed it at his mistress’s feet.