Beatrix of Clare Part 58

And Darby--stunned by the stern justice that had sent him to die a common felon on Tyburn Tree, instead of as a Lord and Peer of England, on the block on Tower Hill--went with dazed brain and silently; and ere his faculties returned, he was among the guards in the rear. Then with a sudden twist he turned about and shouted with all his voice:

"Long live Henry Tudor!"

It was his last defiance. The next instant he was dragged outside and the doors swung shut behind him; while from all the Court went up the answering cry:

"Long live Plantagenet! G.o.d save the King!"

And when silence came the Countess and De Lacy were gone.

"So," said Sir Aymer, as Beatrix and he reached the quiet of the Queen's apartments, "your troubles end--the sun s.h.i.+nes bright again."

The Countess sank into a chair and drew him on the arm beside her.

"My troubles ended when you crossed the courtyard of Roxford," she replied, taking his hand in both her own, "but yours have not begun."

"Wherefore, sweetheart?" he asked. "I thought mine, too, had ended there."

"No," with a shake of the ruddy head . . . "no. . . Your heaviest troubles are yet to come."

He looked at her doubtfully. . . "And when do they begin?"

She fell to toying with her rings and drawing figures on her gown.

"That is for you to choose," she said, with a side-long glance. . .

"Next year, may be, . . . to-morrow, if you wish."

"You mean------?" he cried.

She sprang away with a merry laugh--then came slowly back to him.

"I mean, my lord, they will begin . . . when you are Earl of Clare."

THE END