Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/338

 attention of my friends, for I doubt whether, with my lover before my eyes, I could have kept up the bitter farce. Certainly, no sooner did I behold the slow-coming vehicle, with its pale young occupant, and the procession of prison officers, soldiers, the chaplain, and the executioner, than I had to stifle an involuntary cry that sprang into my throat, and for support was compelled to cling an instant to the window-sill in front.

Even as the cart appeared, a tentative beam of the wintry sun struggled into the cold grey morning. Its effect was very weird and strange upon that great company of expectant, upturned faces, gazing with a kind of rapt horror at the poor young creature who was to die.

The rebel and his escort were now quite near, and I could see the full disposition of his features very plain. I looked down upon him from my vantage involuntarily almost, and raked his face again and again with my eyes to discover one flaw in the perfect demeanour of my hero. And somehow as I looked I felt the vain pride rise in my heart, for a king could not have gone forth to his doom with more propriety. There was no hint of bravado in his bearing, but his head was carried nobly, without undue defiance and without undue humility; his mouth was resolute, and his eyes alert and clear. In all my life I never saw a man look so firm, so spirited, so proud.

As he approached more nearly I discerned a look of expectation and inquiry on his face, and his