, and along the bed lay my father, pale as death
and swathed in bandages; and by the foot of the bed, on a stool, with
a spinning-wheel beside her, sat a woman.

It needed no second look to tell me her name. Mean cell though it
was that held her, and mean her seat, the worn face could belong to
no one meaner than a Queen. A spool of thread had rolled from her
hand, across the floor; yet her hands upon her lap were shaped as
though they still held it. As she sat now, rigid, with her eyes on
the bed, she must have been sitting for minutes. So, while Dom
Basilio snipped and rent at his bandages, she gazed at my father on
the bed, and my father gazed back into her eyes, drinking the love in
them; and the faces of both seemed to shine with a solemn awe.

I think we must have been standing there on the threshold, we three,
for close upon a minute before my father turned his eyes towards me--
so far beyond this life was he travelling, and so far had the sound
of our entrance to follow and overtake his dying senses.

"Prosper! . . ."

"My father!"

He lifted a hand weakly toward the bandages wrapping his breast.
"These--these are of her spinning, lad. This is her bed they have
laid me on. . . . Who is it stands there behind your shoulder?"

"It is the Princess, father. You remember the Princess Camilla?
Yes, madam"--I turned to the Queen--"it is your daughter I bring--
your daughter, and, with your blessing, my wife."

The Queen, though her daughter knelt, did not offer to embrace her,
but lifted two feeble hands over the bowed head as though to bless,
while over her hands her gaze still rested on my father.

"We have had brave work, lad," he panted. "I am sorry you come late
for it--but you were bound on your own business, eh?" He turned with
a ghost of his old smile. "Nay, child, and you did right; I am not
blaming you--The young to the young, and let the dead bury the dead!
Kiss me, lad, if you can find room between these plaguey bandages.
Your pardon, Dom Basilio: you have done your best, and, if I seem
ungrateful, let me make amends and thank you for giving me this last,
best hour. . . . Indeed, Dom Basilio, I am a dead man, but your
bandages are tying my soul here for a while, where it would stay.
Gervase"--he reached out a hand to my uncle, who was past hiding his
tears--"Gervase--brother--there needs no talk, no thanks, between
you and me. . . ."

I drew back and, touching Dom Basilio by the shoulder