Then there was silence,
more eloquent than words.

At last Lucy put her hand gently on George's arm.

'Hearken, George,' she said; 'if the day should ever dawn when I can come
to you with a true heart, I _will_ come. But this is not yet, and I should
wrong a noble love like yours if I gave you in return a poor and mean
affection, unworthy of your devotion. Do you understand me, George?'

'No,' he said, 'no, but I am fain to believe in you, and I will wait.
Only,' he added, with sudden vehemence, 'give me one promise--do not let me
hear by chance that you have become the wife of another man; give me fair
warning, or I swear, if the blow should fall unawares, it would kill me or
drive me mad.'

'You will never hear the news of which you speak, and in this rest content.
I have neither desire nor intention of wedding with any man. Let that
suffice.'

George drew himself up to his full height and said formally,--

'It shall suffice, so help me God.'

In all great assemblies like that which had gathered at Penshurst on this
November day, there are often hidden romances, and chapters rehearsed in
individual lives, of which the majority know nor care nothing. Who amongst
that throng of courtly ladies and gay gentlemen knew aught of George
Ratcliffe's love story; and, if they had known, who would have cared? To
the greater number the whole thing would have seemed a fit subject for
jest, perhaps of ridicule, for self-forgetting love, which has nothing to
feed on, and no consolation except in nursing vain hopes for the fulfilment
of the heart's desire, does not appeal to the sympathy of the multitude.
Such chivalrous, steadfast love was not unknown in the days of Queen
Elizabeth, nor is it unknown in the days of Queen Victoria. It left no
record behind it then, nor will it leave a record now. It is amongst the
hidden treasures, which are never, perhaps, to see the light of day; but it
is a treasure, nevertheless; and who shall say that it may not shine in a
purer atmosphere and gain hereafter the meed of praise it neither sought
for nor found here?

There was much stir and bustle in the President's Court at Penshurst's the
next morning. The gateway tower had just been completed by Sir Henry Sidney
on the old foundations, which dated from the thirteenth century. And now,
from under its shadow, on this still November morning, 'the light of Sir
Henry's family' was to ride out with a large retinue to take up the high
positio