The speaker had good reason to ask the question. Raleigh--the brown-faced courtier was no less than he--seemed utterly overcome. Something untoward had most certainly happened. There was more than a mere matter of a play’s failure or success in the dismay of that strong face which shone a bleak gray in the uncertain light of the room. “Why, what’s the matter? Tell us, for the love of God!” But Raleigh shook his head haplessly. He who knew not the meaning of fear in the presence of bodily peril, he whose resolution never failed in great crises, was wholly unable to tell the news he bore. “Is it Will?” A sense of foreboding had descended suddenly upon all. “Tell us, I pray you.”--The eagerly anxious voices sank in the oddest manner. “Has aught happened to Will Shakespeare?” Raleigh did not answer. But that face so eloquent of power and high capacity seemed to grow a little bleaker. And then twenty pairs of eyes that were turned almost fiercely upon it saw that a rush of sudden tears was shining there. The man at the head of the table laid a hand to his heart. “Oh!” His exclamation went echoing through the silence of the long room. Again the solemn hush descended. That which Walter Raleigh had not courage to tell, not one of these men could muster the courage to ask. What could have happened? Those were perilous times indeed; times in which the quietest, most law-abiding citizen took his life in his hand when he walked down the street. The tragedy of poor Kit Marlowe was in every mind. Had Will Shakespeare, the incomparable poet and charming personality, met the assassin’s knife by chance or by design? The face of Raleigh portended not less than that. Yet not one of these men could summon enough resolution to set his doubts at rest. The silence was painful. A pin could have been heard to fall in the room. Suddenly there came sounds of heavy feet stumbling, blundering up the wooden stairs. The door was flung open. A thick, squat, gnarled-looking fellow reeled in like a man under the influence of wine. His face shone livid in the light of the candles. It was Burbage the tragedian. “Speak, man! Tell the news!” came the hoarse demand of a dozen voices. “Shakespeare,” The voice of the tragedian could hardly be heard. “He is arrested by the Queen’s order. They say--they say he will lose his head.” CHAPTER XXXV GRIEF, consternation, horror surged through that room. For the moment, the shock of the announcement was more than they could bear. It was as if each man present had been stunned by a blow. But the calm was for the moment only. In the next came a babel of tongues framing a score of incoherent questions.