And Regnald felt that somehow he was foiled,-- Foiled, but not beaten. He would have his way. Had not the Garnauts always had their will These six or seven centuries, more or less? Meanwhile he chafed; but shortly after this Regnald received the sorest hurt of all. For, one eve, lounging idly in the close, Watching the windows of the parsonage, He heard low voices in the alder-trees, Voices he knew, and one that sweetly said, "Thine!" and he paused with choking heart, and saw Eustace, his brother, and fair Agnes Vail In the soft moonrise lingering with clasped hands. The two passed on, and Regnald hid himself Among the brushwood, where his vulpine eyes Dilated in the darkness as they passed. There, in the dark, he lay a bitter hour Gnawing his nails, and then arose unseen And crept away with murder in his soul. Eustace! curse on him, with his handsome eyes! Regnald had envied Eustace many a day,-- Envied his fame, and that exceeding grace And courtliness which he had learned at Court Of Sidney, Raleigh, Essex, and the rest: For when their father, lean Sir Egbert, died, Eustace, whose fortune dangled at his thigh,-- A Damask blade,--had hastened to the Court To line his purse, perchance to build a name; And catching there the passion of the time, He, with a score of doughty Devon lads, Sailed with bold Drake into the Spanish seas; Returning whence, with several ugly scars,-- Which made him lovelier in women's eyes,-- And many a chest of ingots,--not the less These latter made him lovely,--sunned himself, Sometimes at Court, sometimes at Garnaut Hall,-- At Court, by favor of the Virgin Queen, For great Elizabeth had smiled on him. So Regnald, who was neither good nor brave Nor graceful, liked not Eustace from the start, And this night hated him. With angry brows, He sat in a bleak chamber of the Hall, His fingers toying with his poniard's point Abstractedly. Three times the ancient clock, Bolt-upright like a mummy in its case, Doled out the hour: at length the round red moon, Rising above the ghostly poplar-tops, Looked in on Regnald nursing his dark thought, Looked in on the stiff portraits on the wall, And dead Sir Egbert's empty coat-of-mail.