She could see that he suffered and that he did not understand. The misunderstanding, which nothing could clear up now, still made a veil of darkness before his eyes. Her tender heart ached for him, her soul went out to him amidst all these people who laughed and chatted around her. For one brief moment their eyes met across a sea of indifferent faces--his lighted up with all the ardour of a never-fading passionate love, and hers spoke to him an eternal farewell. CHAPTER XL POOR MIRRAB A few moments later the whole gay and giddy throng, like a flight of brilliantly hued butterflies, had fluttered out into the garden. The wintry sun was bestowing its last cold kiss on the terraces and bosquets of the park. Beyond, the landscape--wrapped in a delicate haze of purple--was gently swooning in the arms of this November afternoon. All bird-song was silent, save the harsh chirrup of aggressive sparrows and the occasional brisk note of an irrepressible robin. Close by the fountain a strange, dull group moved about somewhat listlessly--men and women, a dozen or so, in faded or ragged worsted mantles, shoes through which the flesh appeared, and mud-stained, bedraggled hose. Truly a wondrous spectacle on the delicately gravelled paths of the regal residence! a remarkable picture against the majestic background of carefully trimmed hedges, or conventional, well-cared-for shrubberies. They looked indifferently round them, these poor shreds of society--the happy recipients of unlooked-for royal bounty. There were all sorts and conditions of men and women here, from the wrinkly-visaged hag who plied a precarious trade in illicit goods, to the hardened, sullen lout who made of Her Majesty's prisons an habitual home. A vagrant too here and there--one boy, barely in his teens, with pinched, haggard features, on which starvation had already scribbled her ugly name; a young girl, with bold, dark eyes, and coarse face masked with glaring cosmetics; and, far in the remote background, a huddled-up figure of a woman in tawdry finery, with a torn, bedraggled white dress ill concealing her naked shoulders, a few scraps of faded ivy-leaves still clinging to her bright-hued, matted hair. They were astonished to find themselves here: made curious, senseless jokes about the marble basin, the trimmed shrubs, the fish in the ponds. The whole thing was a puzzle, and poverty and hunger had dulled all joy in them. They had been told that by the Queen's desire and at His Grace of Wessex' prayer, they were to be immune from punishment for their present offences, and a vague, dull wonder as to the meaning of this unexpected clemency filled their benighted souls. They were at liberty, inasmuch as no man-at-arms actually dogged their footsteps, but they felt the eyes of stern guardians, court lackeys, or park-keepers fixed unrelentingly upon them.