y to his appearance which the time-stained countenance
of the original warrior totally lacked.

At last Paula spoke, so stilly that she seemed a statue enunciating:
'Are the verses known that he wrote with his blood?'

'O yes, they have been carefully preserved.' Captain De Stancy, with
true wooer's instinct, had committed some of them to memory that morning
from the printed copy to be found in every well-ordered library. 'I fear
I don't remember them all,' he said, 'but they begin in this way:--

"From one that dyeth in his discontent,
Dear Faire, receive this greeting to thee sent;
And still as oft as it is read by thee,
Then with some deep sad sigh remember mee!

O 'twas my fortune's error to vow dutie,
To one that bears defiance in her beautie!
Sweete poyson, pretious wooe, infectious jewell--
Such is a Ladie that is faire and cruell.

How well could I with ayre, camelion-like,
Live happie, and still gazeing on thy cheeke,
In which, forsaken man, methink I see
How goodlie love doth threaten cares to mee.

Why dost thou frowne thus on a kneelinge soule,
Whose faults in love thou may'st as well controule?--
In love--but O, that word; that word I feare
Is hateful still both to thy hart and eare!

. . . . .

Ladie, in breefe, my fate doth now intend
The period of my daies to have an end:
Waste not on me thy pittie, pretious Faire:
Rest you in much content; I, in despaire!"'

A solemn silence followed the close of the recital, which De Stancy
improved by turning the point of the sword to his breast, resting the
pommel upon the floor, and saying:--

'After writing that we may picture him turning this same sword in this
same way, and falling on it thus.' He inclined his body forward as he
spoke.

'Don't, Captain De Stancy, please don't!' cried Paula involuntarily.

'No, don't show us any further, William!' said his sister. 'It is too
tragic.'

De Stancy put away the sword, himself rather excited--not, however, by
his own recital, but by the direct gaze of Paula at him.

This Protean quality of De Stancy's, by means of which he could assume
the shape and situation of almost any ancestor at will, had impressed
her, and he perceived it with a throb of fervour. But it had done no
more than impress her; for though in delivering the lines he had so
fixed his look u