They did not hear the words that passed between them at times when he stood near her in some crowd, and dropped, as 'twas thought, words of burning prayer and love into her ear. 'Twas said that it was like her to listen with unchanging face, and when she deigned reply, to answer without turning towards him. But such words and replies it had more than once been Anne's ill-fortune to be near enough to catch, and hearing them she had shuddered. One night at a grand rout, the Duke of Osmonde but just having left the reigning beauty's side, she heard the voice she hated close by her, speaking. "You think you can disdain me to the end," it said. "Your ladyship is _sure_ so?" She did not turn or answer, and there followed a low laugh. "You think a man will lie beneath your feet and be trodden upon without speaking. You are too high and bold." She waved her painted fan, and gazed steadily before her at the crowd, now and then bending her head in gracious greeting and smiling at some passer-by. "If I could tell the story of the rose garden, and of what the sun-dial saw, and what the moon shone on--" he said. He heard her draw her breath sharply through her teeth, he saw her white bosom lift as if a wild beast leapt within it, and he laughed again. "His Grace of Osmonde returns," he said; and then marking, as he never failed to do, bitterly against his will, the grace and majesty of this rival, who was one of the greatest and bravest of England's gentlemen, and knowing that she marked it too, his rage so mounted that it overcame him. "Sometimes," he said, "methinks that I shall _kill_ you!" "Would you gain your end thereby?" she answered, in a voice as low and deadly. "I would frustrate his--and yours." "Do it, then," she hissed back, "some day when you think I fear you." "'Twould be too easy," he answered. "You fear it too little. There are bitterer things." She rose and met his Grace, who had approached her. Always to his greatness and his noble heart she turned with that new feeling of dependence which her whole life had never brought to her before. His deep eyes, falling on her tenderly as she rose, were filled with protecting concern. Involuntarily he hastened his steps. "Will your Grace take me to my coach?" she said. "I am not well. May I--go?" as gently as a tender, appealing girl. And moved by this, as by her pallor, more than his man's words could have told, he gave her his arm and drew her quickly and supportingly away.