Chapter 30

On Tyburn Hill

There was none knew her as her husband did--none in the world--though
so many were her friends and worshippers. As he loved her he knew her,
the passion of his noble heart giving him clearer and more watchful
eyes than any other. Truth was, indeed, that she herself did not know
how much he saw and pondered on and how tender his watch upon her was.

The dark shadow in her eyes he had first noted, the look which would
pass over her face sometimes at a moment when 'twas brightest, when it
glowed with tenderest love for himself or with deepest yearning over
the children who were given to them as time passed, for there were born
to fill their home four sons who were like young gods for strength and
beauty, and two daughters as fair things as Nature ever made to promise
perfect womanhood.

And how she loved and tended them, and how they joyed in their young
lives and worshipped and revered her!

"When I was a child, Gerald," she said to their father, "I was
unhappy--and 'tis a hideous thing that a child should be so. I loved
none and none loved me, and though all feared my rage and gave me my
will, I was restless and savage and a rebel, though I knew not why.
There were hours--I did not know their meaning, and hated them--when I
was seized with fits of horrid loneliness and would hide myself in the
woods, and roll in the dead leaves, and curse myself and all things
because I was wretched. I used to think that I was angered at my dogs,
or my horse, or some servant, or my father, and would pour forth oaths
at them--but 'twas not they. Our children must be happy--they must be
happy, Gerald. I will have them happy!"

What a mother they had in her!--a creature who could be wild with play
and laughter with them, who was so beauteous that even in mere babyhood
they would sit upon her knee and stare at her for sheer infant pleasure
in her rich bloom and great, sweet eyes; who could lift and toss and
rock them in her strong, soft arms as if they were but flowers and she
a summer wind; whose voice was music, and whose black hair was a great
soft mantle 'twas their childish delight to coax her to loosen that it
might flow about her, billowing, she standing laughing beneath and
tossing it over them to hide their smallness under it as beneath a
veil. She was their heroine and their young pride, and among themselves
they made joyful little boasts that there was no other such lady in
all England. To behold her mount her tall horse and gallop and leap
hedges and gates, to hear her tell stories of the moorlands and woods,
and the game hiding in nests and warrens, of the ways of dogs and hawks
and horses, and soldiers and Kings and Queens, and of how their father
had