There was silence for a few moments. The poor people, happy with the rich gifts in their hands, scared too by the presence of so many lords and ladies, among whom they, however, had not yet recognized the Queen, all retreated into the background, leaving Wessex and the strange woman alone and isolated from their own groups, his rich black doublet and fine mantle and plumes contrasting strangely against the dank, mud-bespattered white dress of the unfortunate vagrant. What a quaint picture did they present--these two, whose destinies had been so closely knit. No one spoke, for every one felt that curious, unexplainable awe which falls upon the spirit of every man and woman when in the presence of an unfathomable mystery. And that mystery, every one felt it. The woman's voice had such a solemn ring in it when she said, "'Tis I have wronged thee so." In the very midst of this awed silence the woman suddenly threw back her head, brushed the hair back from her face, and looked straight into the eyes of the Duke. She was wan and pale with hunger, smears of mud spoilt the beauty of her features, but there was a look even now in that face which made Wessex recoil with horror. He did not utter a word, but gazed on as if a ghostly vision had suddenly appeared before him and was mocking him with its terrifying aspects. Grinning monsters seemed to surround that girlish figure before him, pointing with claw-like fingers at the golden hair, the delicate straight nose, the childish mouth. As in a hellish panorama he suddenly saw the whole hideousness of the mistake which had wrecked his life's happiness, and half dazed, helpless, he gazed on as upon the risen spectre of his past. A murmur close behind him broke the spell of this magic moment. "So like the Lady Ursula," whispered one lady to her gallant. But the name seemed to have reached the woman's dulled ears, and to have struck upon a sensitive fibre of her intellect. "Ursula again!" she said vehemently, turning now to face the group of the elegant ladies who stood staring at her. "Why do you all plague me with that name? . . . I am Mirrab, the soothsayer . . . I've been taught to read the secrets of the stars, of the waters, the air, and the winds; I foretell the future and brew the elixir of life. Wessex saved my life! 'tis his!--I read in the stars that he was in great danger and came to warn him!" Her apathy had totally deserted her now. She was gradually working herself up to a fever of excitement, talking more and more wildly, and letting her eyes roam restlessly on the brilliant groups before her--the ladies, the courtiers . . . the Queen. . . . Then they alighted upon the Cardinal de Moreno, who, pale to the lips, strove in vain to smother the growing agitation which had mastered him from the moment when he too first recognized Mirrab. Her passion at sight of him now turned to fury, and, pointing a vengeful finger at him, she shouted wildly--