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And she stooped down over him, saying, “He hath fainted for lack o’ food,” but I knew that there was both wine and bread i’ th’ cave. And she called his name, but he was silent. And she called him again and again. And at last she bade me come to her side, and when we had turned him upon his side so that his face was towards us, behold, he was dead. But Mistress Marian saith again, “He hath swooned away.” And she put her hand upon his brow, but no sooner did she touch it than she cried out at its coldness, and shook the dead man in her frenzy, crying,

“Ernle! Ernle! thou art free! Wake, man! thou art free!”

I said, “Mistress, mistress, for love of God! Dost thou not see that neither thou nor any other can wake him more?”

Thereat she fell back upon her knees, leaning upon one arm. And she said, “Dost thou mean–“

I bowed down mine head, for I could not meet her eyes. And she fell upon his body, and stirred no more, so that when they came to bear the poor young lord to the castle, they did bear her also. And for some hours we thought her dead.

Now when my lady saw them how they lay there, and the sunlight red upon them like to blood, she came and kneeled down in front o’ me, and lifted up her poor fettered hands meekly, like a little child. And she said, “Nurse, I pray you tell me what it doth mean, for methinks I am waxing foolish, like poor Marjory i’ th’ village whose man fell from the cliff.”

I could not answer her for sobbing.

And she said, “Do they sleep?”

And I nodded my head, for I could say no word.

She said, “Pray you, do not wake them. An they sleep till the morrow, all will be well.” Suddenly her wits came back upon her with a rush, as doth a wind that hath seemed to be gone for aye. And she snapt the girdle on her wrists like as it had been a thread o’ silk, and ran and laid hold on him with her hands, and dragged him forth upon the grass. And she saith,

“Ernle! Ernle! Ernle! What! wilt thou not answer me, now that thou art free? See! thou mayest ride to war. It is not yet too late. What there, nurse! My lord’s charger! Run! run!” Then leaped she to her feet with one cry that methought would ‘a’ cracked the welkin in twain above our heads.

“Dead! Oh God in heaven!”

So for an instant she stood, with her arms reached high above her head, and her eyes upon him as he lay at her feet, even as a flame doth poise for a breath ere sinking again upon the coals. But anon she dropped down beside him, and beat her forehead with the lower palms o’ her hands, and she saith, “Well didst thou sign me with thy blood! well didst thou sign me with thy blood!” Then all at once did she peep up at me over her shoulder with one o’ her winsome ways, and fell a-laughing softly.

“Nurse,” saith she, “hath he not found a pretty way to punish me? He feigns it well–by’r lay’kin–doth he not, nurse?”

And she rocked to and fro, as she knelt beside him, laughing softly to herself, and ever and again she would reach forth one little hand, all scarred in her struggle with Mistress Marian, and would touch a stray lock into place, and once she bent over and kissed him, laughing softly, and nodding to herself very wisely. And she would sit that way, and rock herself to and fro, and smile upon the ground, and laugh softly, until the very day that she did die. And the last words that she did ever say were, “Just once, Ernle–just once.”

* * * * *

(Nurse Crumpet rises and stirs the fire, amid a heavy silence, broken only by the little Lady Dorothy’s sobs and the rushing of the wind outside the great hall.)