It was the prelude to that immortal music whose symphony had already closed in Elysium. And the lawyer, profoundly thoughtful, went unconscious on his way. Queen Elizabeth “What was that?” “Madam, it was the snow falling from the roof.” “Methought it was a footstep.” “No, madam.” “There, heard you it not--the sound of someone running?” “But a rat behind the wainscot. Your Grace’s ears deceive you.” “What, for ever? Poor ears, so curst to lies and flattery!” “Your Highness is overwrought.” “Will someone speak the truth to me before I die? God, how my bones ache! No step? Go look in the gallery, child.” The girl to whom she spoke, leaving her embroidery-frame, stepped lightly to the door, glanced this way and that, and returned. Her young eyes shone humid between pity and awe. “No, indeed, madam,” she said low. “The corridor is empty.” The Queen, without answering, crossed to the window and stood staring from it. It looked upon the privy garden of Whitehall, now one carpet of quiet, sad-coloured snow with the river ruled across its far end like an inky mourning border. A motionless fog brooded over the trees and over the Palace buildings trooped to right and left. There seemed no sign of life anywhere. Within, a glare of fire burning on a great stone-hooded hearth dashed the wainscoting with red, and crimsoned the hands and faces of the figures in the panels of tapestry, and touched the gold groining of the ceiling and the fresh rushes on the floor with smears like blood. The old eyes, gazing so fixedly across the snow, seemed streaked with the same ruddy hue, but reflected from another and an inward fire. As to the first, she was ever disdainfully insensible to cold, this gaunt, strong old Tudor woman. Two ladies-in-waiting, a mother and her daughter, had their places by the hearth, where they embroidered together, the former seated, the child bending over. They were the Queen’s only attendants for the moment, since her Majesty was in that tortured frame of mind when her own sole company was but less terrible to her than the thought of an officious suite, veiling curiosity under devotion. Human neighbourhood, silent, tactful, unobtrusive, was the balm her torn soul most needed; any ostentatious sympathy would have maddened her. She could abandon herself to herself beside this gentle pair, as if they were no more than inarticulate animals--wistful dumb affections on which she could lean her voluble heart, certain of their unconscious understanding. Now the younger lady, returning to her place, stood awestruck a moment, then bent and whispered to her mother, “O, madam, the Tower gun! How shall we close her Grace’s ears to it?” The Queen, hearing the whisper but not its import, started, and, with a deep flurried sigh, turned round. The wild tumult of thoughts in her mind found expression in detached and broken questions, abstractions, self-communings.