“Betimes,” said Mistress Wimpole, “I am afraid when she smiles, but to-night some thought had crossed her mind that pleased her.  I think it was that she liked to think that he who has conquered so many ladies will find that he is to be outwitted and made a mock of.  She likes that others shall be beaten if she thinks them impudent.  She liked it as a child, and would flog the stable-boys with her little whip until they knelt to beg her pardon for their freedoms.”

That night Mistress Anne went to her bed-chamber with her head full of wandering thoughts, and she had not the power to bid them disperse themselves and leave her—­indeed, she scarce wished for it.  She was thinking of Clorinda, and wondering sadly that she was of so high a pride that she could bear herself as though there were no human weakness in her breast, not even the womanly weakness of a heart.  How could it be possible that she could treat with disdain this gallant gentleman, if he loved her, as he surely must?  Herself she had been sure that she had seen an ardent flame in his blue eyes, even that first day when he had bowed to her with that air of grace as he spoke of the fragrance of the rose leaves he had thought wafted from her robe.  How could a woman whom he loved resist him?  How could she cause him to suffer by forcing him to stand at arm’s length when he sighed to draw near and breathe his passion at her feet?

In the silence of her chamber as she disrobed, she sighed with restless pain, but did not know that her sighing was for grief that love—­of which there seemed so little in some lives—­could be wasted and flung away.  She could not fall into slumber when she lay down upon her pillow, but tossed from side to side with a burdened heart.

“She is so young and beautiful and proud,” she thought.  “It is because I am so much older that I can see these things—­that I see that this is surely the one man who should be her husband.  There may be many others, but they are none of them her equals, and she would scorn and hate them when she was once bound to them for life.  This one is as beautiful as she—­and full of grace, and wit, and spirit.  She could not look down upon him, however wrath she was at any time.  Ah me!  She should not spurn him, surely she should not!”

She was so restless and ill at ease that she could not lie upon her bed, but rose therefrom, as she often did in her wakeful hours, and went to her lattice, gently opening it to look out upon the night, and calm herself by sitting with her face uplifted to the stars, which from her childhood she had fancied looked down upon her kindly and as if they would give her comfort.

To-night there were no stars.  There should have been a moon three-quarters full, but, in the evening, clouds had drifted across the sky and closed over all heavily, so that no moonlight was to be seen, save when a rare sudden gust made a ragged rent, for a moment, in the blackness.