Page:The fortunes of Perkin Warbeck.djvu/381

Rh if my worst fears prove true, he suffers not more than I; and can it be that the young limbs of my own loved Richard are put to torture!"

Elizabeth, grew ashy white; the king listened with a sarcastic smile, saying, "I had not thought of that; you are a silly girl to mention such things."

"I do not believe you," exclaimed the princess, "your looks belie your words; let me but see him afar off, let me catch a glimpse of my princely love—is he in the Tower?"

"Neither the Tower, nor any royal palace, detains your lord; he is taking the air, pleasantly I hope, in the high places of our town. To finish this war of words, and your incredulity, will you visit your prince of plotters, and behold him on whom the king of Scotland bestowed your virgin hand?"

"See him! Oh, even in death to clasp his decaying limbs were better than this absence!"

An indefinable expression passed over Henry's countenance as he replied, "Be it as you wish; you must hasten, for in an hour the occasion will be past; it is but a few steps; you shall be attended."

At last she was to see him; this assurance filled and satisfied her; there was no place in her heart for any other thought, sinister as were her torturer's looks. Her eyes grew bright, her cheek resumed its vermeil tint, never had she looked more lovely; it was a dazzling beauty; one of those ineffable expressions, which, unless language could express music, or painting image fire, it is in vain to attempt to describe: an irradiation of love passed over her countenance; her form; something like it dwells in Raphael's Madonnas and Guido's Angel of Annunciation,—Henry was awestruck, yet did not falter in his purpose; he let the bright angel go forth on her mission of good and love, to meet on her way a sight fiends might rejoice over. Human life and human nature are, alas! a dread, inexplicable web of suffering and of infliction.

In Westminster, in sight of the abbey where his ancestors had been crowned kings, the spectacle, intended to be so opprobrious, was set forth. Henry, in his angry fear on his escape, in his exultation at his re-capture, forgot the soft tyranny of Katherine's looks; or rather he despised himself for the obedience he had yielded to them; and, in the true spirit of baseness, was glad to revenge on her the ill effects that had resulted to him through his involuntary enslavement. It was a triumph to him to disgrace the object of her care, for he was ill-read, his understanding affording him no key to the unknown language, in that illuminated page of the history of feminine excellence,