Stolidly he resumed his nightly round, satisfied that he need no longer look for lurking thieves in the park.
When Everingham, having seen the last of the watchman, returned to the spot where he had left His Eminence and Mirrab, he found that both had disappeared.
The evening banquet had been anything but gay.
The Queen, as was oft her wont, had hardly said a word. The Cardinal de Moreno looked thoughtful and His Grace of Wessex was singularly silent.
Directly after supper Her Majesty retired to her own apartments, accompanied by her ladies, leaving behind her that desultory atmosphere of dull and purposeless conversation, which hangs round a supper table in the absence of the fair sex.
The brilliant assembly broke up into small groups. The Earl of Pembroke and two or three other lords were leaving for Scotland towards midnight; their friends gathered round them to bid them God-speed. In the deep embrasure of the great bay His Grace of Wessex was in earnest conference with Lord Winchester and Sir William Drury, whilst at one end of the long centre table half a dozen young gallants were idling over a game of hazard.
But there was a feeling of obsession in the air--a sense as if something momentous was about to happen. Whispered rumours, more or less conflicting, were afloat, yet nothing definite was known. On the other hand, idle, far-stretched gossip was rife and was even growing in extravagance as the evening wore on.
No one had been present on the terrace to witness the little incident which occurred there earlier in the afternoon save the three distinguished actors in the brief comedy scene. Obviously from them nothing could be gleaned. The Queen and the Cardinal would not be like to enlighten the curious, whilst the Duke of Wessex, at all times reserved and unapproachable, could not be asked to give his version of the event.
The foreign envoys had very soon followed the example set by Her Majesty and withdrawn from the circle, which seemed more hostile to them than usual to-night. The Cardinal de Moreno and the Marquis de Suarez were the first to go. They occupied the magnificent suite of chambers wherein ill-fated Wolsey had lived, schemed, and fallen. The more sumptuous series of rooms beyond--those built with lavish extravagance by King Henry VIII for his own personal use--had been placed at the disposal of His Grace of Wessex and his numerous retinue.
