er that of Anne, as if even in sleep watchful; both charming
forms so linked and woven that the two seemed as one life, the very
breath in each rising and ebbing with the other; the dark ringlets of
Sibyll mingling with the auburn gold of Anne's luxuriant hair, and the
darkness and the gold, tress within tress, falling impartially over
either neck, that gleamed like ivory beneath that common veil,--when
he saw this twofold loveliness, the sentiment, the conviction of that
mysterious defence which exists in purity, thrilled like ice through his
burning veins. In all his might of monarch and of man, he felt the awe
of that unlooked-for protection,--maidenhood sheltering maidenhood,
innocence guarding innocence. The double virtue appalled and baffled
him; and that slight arm which encircled the neck he would have perilled
his realm to clasp, shielded his victim more effectually than the
bucklers of all the warriors that ever gathered round the banner of the
lofty Warwick. Night and the occasion befriended him; but in vain. While
Sibyll was there, Anne was saved. He ground his teeth, and muttered to
himself. At that moment Anne turned restlessly. This movement disturbed
the light sleep of her companion. She spoke half inaudibly, but the
sound was as the hoot of shame in the ear of the guilty king. He let
fall the curtain, and was gone. And if one who lived afterwards to hear
and to credit the murderous doom which, unless history lies, closed the
male line of Edward, had beheld the king stealing, felon-like, from
the chamber,--his step reeling to and fro the gallery floors, his face
distorted by stormy passion, his lips white and murmuring, his beauty
and his glory dimmed and humbled,--the spectator might have half
believed that while Edward gazed upon those harmless sleepers, A VISION
OF THE TRAGEDY TO COME had stricken down his thought of guilt, and
filled up its place with horror,--a vision of a sleep as pure, of two
forms wrapped in an embrace as fond, of intruders meditating a crime
scarce fouler than his own; and the sins of the father starting into
grim corporeal shapes, to become the deathsmen of the sons!

CHAPTER III. NEW DANGERS TO THE HOUSE OF YORK--AND THE KING'S HEART
ALLIES ITSELF WITH REBELLION AGAINST THE KING'S THRONE.

Oh, beautiful is the love of youth to youth, and touching the tenderness
of womanhood to woman; and fair in the eyes of the happy sun is the
waking of holy sleep, and the virgin kiss u