There had been a good deal of bustle and confusion in the Tower during the morning, three days after the events which we have related in the last chapter. Two persons, bearing the appearance of physicians, had crossed from the gate to the tower in which Overbury was imprisoned, and visited him, in company with the Lieutenant, while, from the window of the Lady Arabella's chamber, might be seen a group, consisting of the notorious Doctor Foreman, Weston, and another man, conversing together eagerly, and evidently waiting till the personages who had been admitted to their victim returned.

The physicians soon passed by the spot where they stood, without taking any other notice of them than by a contemptuous look, which the younger of the two bestowed upon Foreman; and immediately after, Sir Gervase Elways joined their evil council, and remained in conversation with them nearly half an hour.

After the consultation was concluded, Foreman quitted the Tower; and the rest of the party separated. Silence and solitude then took possession of the walls and courts around; and during the rest of the day, it was remarked that an unusual degree of stillness prevailed in that part of the fortress, few, if any persons, being seen moving about, and the only noises heard being those which rose from Tower Hill and the streets adjacent.

In the meanwhile, since the day that we last spoke of, Arabella had fallen into a state of deeper despondency than ever. Her efforts for cheerfulness were all vain; and she sat for hours gazing listlessly out of the window, with the tears rising from time to time in her eyes, indicating the sad thoughts that were busy at her heart. It was to no purpose that Ida Mara strove, by every means in her power, to engage her mind with other things than her own hard fate. Books had lost their charm for her; music seemed but to increase her grief; and, though once or twice she tried to converse, she soon lost herself in reveries again, from which it was difficult to rouse her.

"Leave me, Ida, leave me," she said, at length, as evening was beginning to fall; "my heart is very heavy, and it is vain to try to lighten it. You have stayed within with me all day, dear girl; go out and breathe the fresh air now. A walk round the walls will do you good."

"I do not like to leave you so sad," replied Ida Mara; "I wish you would come with me. I am sure it were better for you than sitting here alone."

"I will, I will presently," replied Arabella. "Come back in half-an-hour, dear Ida, and I will go with you.--But leave me now."

Ida Mara saw that it was in vain to press her farther at that moment, and leaving her, rambled through the vacant courts, and round the wide wall of the Tower, meeting with few of its inhabitants; till, on her return, in one of the narrow passages, she suddenly found herself face to face with one of the men who had carried her off from Highgate. He had evidently been drinking largely, and she made an effort to pass him at once, hoping that he might not notice her.

He stopped her, however, though not uncivilly, saying, "Ah, pretty lady, is that you? I am glad to see you here; for I once did you some wrong; and I don't intend to do so any more, whatsoever they may say.--You forgive me, pretty lady, don't you?"

The man, though not drunk, was not quite sober, and Ida Mara was somewhat alarmed.

"Oh yes, I forgive you freely," she replied; "but I must go on; for the Lady Arabella expects me."

"Nay, stop a bit," said Weston; "we are old acquaintances, you know. I am Sir Thomas Overbury's servant now; but I shan't be long, I think."

Ida listened eagerly. "Poor man, he is very ill, I hear," she replied.

"Ay, that he is," answered Weston, "but he is a devilish long time about it. He's too cunning to give up life easily; and so he makes a hard struggle against death."

"Who would not?" said Ida Mara, with a shudder, for she put her own interpretation on the man's words. "Pray what is his complaint?"

"Nay, I know not," answered Weston; "a multitude, I believe. He makes nothing but complaints from morning till night. He'll be more at ease when he's gone."

"As many others will," answered Ida Mara.

"Ay, ay," rejoined Weston, with a stupid look, "but you need not be afraid.--I'll keep that for myself. I may have need of it."

Ida Mara did not comprehend what he meant; but she was interested in the fate of Sir Thomas Overbury; and, knowing that her lady would entertain the same feelings, she said, as the man seemed rather loquacious in his wine, "Poor Sir Thomas is very strictly confined, I believe. The guards will let no one pass even near his door?"

"Oh, the guards are gone now," replied Weston. "They are not much wanted. Nobody sees him but myself and Franklyn; and we have admission at all hours."

"Then he is so weak, I suppose," observed Ida Mara, "that he cannot stir from his bed, so that escape is impossible?"

"He might as well try to escape from his grave," rejoined the other; "and yet he lingers long."

"Well, I must go on now," said Ida. "Good night, sir, good night."

"Good night," answered Weston. "I don't suppose I shall see you in the Tower again, pretty lady; for at nine I bring his supper to him, and that is the last meal he will eat, I fancy."

Thus saying, he suffered the fair Italian to pass, and walked on his own way.

Arabella was sitting in the same spot where Ida Mara left her, with the last faint rays of day streaming in from the window upon that face, once so beautiful, but now faded and worn with the anguish of the heart, so that those who had loved her best would hardly have known her. Her eyes were red with weeping; but the tears had been wiped away; and when Ida entered, she turned round and tried to smile.

"Well," she said, "what hast thou seen, dear friend? Come, sit you down beside me, Ida. I shall not go out to night, though the moon, peeping up there, seems to ask me to come forth under her melancholy light, which is but too like the complexion of my own thoughts, where the only brightness is the reflection from a star that has set."

"I have met with something worth telling, lady," replied Ida Mara; "it is not often one does so within these walls." And taking a seat beside Arabella, according to her orders, she began, and in a low voice recounted all that had occurred. Her tone was soft and quiet; but there was an earnest sadness in her manner, which seemed to imply, that she attached more importance to the conversation she recapitulated, than the mere words would justify. When she had told all, she dropped her voice still further, and added, "He is dying, lady, that is clear; and I fear much, by poison!"

"Alas! alas!" said Arabella, "this is a terrible fate; and if he had faults, as doubtless he had, they have been punished direfully. Oh, Ida, Ida! what a horrible thing! To die in a gloomy prison, debarred the support of kindred faces round one, or the comfort of the voices that we love, or the touch of the hand of affection, or the consolation of a good man's prayer--with assassins to tend our bed of death, and the eyes that hate us gazing on our agony. Oh, Ida! it is too terrible;--I will go to him,--a woman, a Christian, I cannot stay here, and leave him to expire without any one to pity, or any one to help. I must go to him, Ida. You say that the guards are gone; perhaps the doors may be locked; but still I can speak to him through the window. I can tell him that I grieve for him. I can bid him look to God--to his Saviour, to atonement, to redemption--to a world where the sorrows of this earth shall find compensation at last."

Her words were somewhat wild, and her manner unusually vehement; but though Ida feared that Arabella might witness a scene which would only tend to agitate and depress her still farther, she did not like to remonstrate.

"I am ready, lady," she replied; "what shall I bring you?"

"Nothing but a veil," answered Arabella; "my temples burn, the cool air will refresh me. Put on the black mantle, Ida, and draw the hood over your head, then no one will see us as we glide along the walls; or, if they do, they will take us for the spectres of some who have been here murdered. How many! Oh, God, how many!"

Ida obeyed her directions, and then, issuing forth, but without passing through the room in which the servants sat, they walked with slow and silent steps towards the tower, in which Sir Thomas Overbury was lingering out the last few hours of his miserable captivity. All was silent and still. The sun was now fully set; the gibbous moon, a few days short of her full, just shone over the parapet; the night was cool, but clear, without a breath of air stirring in the heaven; the murmur of the great city rose up around, like the sound of distant waters rolling over a pebbly bed; and a red star, shining near the earth's bright satellite, looked rather like an angry rival of the Queen of Night, than her soft attendant train-bearer.

Stealing quietly on, Arabella and her companion reached the tower where the poor captive lay, entered the open gateway which led to the stairs, and tried the door on the right hand, which they knew to be that of the sick man's chamber. It was locked, however.

"We must go to the window," said Arabella, in a low voice; and issuing forth again, she walked round to a small loop-hole, at the height of about four feet from the ground, the casement of which she found open.

"Keep where you can see if any one comes, Ida," said Arabella; and, approaching close to the window, she looked in.

A lamp was standing on the table, shedding its faint and sickly light around the narrow chamber in the tower; and a pale, emaciated form lay stretched upon a pallet close beneath the lady's eyes, as she looked through the loophole. Beside him, on a stool, was a cup containing some liquid, and a book; but the fluid had not been tasted, and he seemed but little in a condition to read. Every feature of the sick man's face betokened pain; his eyes were turned towards the rafters over head, his knees drawn up, his right arm under his head, and the thin fingers of his hand grasping the pillow, as if in bitter agony. A moan burst from his lips as Arabella watched him, and, without farther pause, she said, in a low but distinct voice, "Sir Thomas--Sir Thomas Overbury!"

The unhappy man started up, and looked round the room with faint and weary eyes, but could see no one.

"Who is that?" he asked, turning his face at length towards the window. "Some one called me. Whose face is that? I cannot see the features."

"It is I," answered the lady--"it is I--a friend, Sir Thomas."

"A friend?" said Overbury, with a woful shake of the head. "God help us!--Is there such a thing?"

"It is Arabella Seymour," replied the lady--"once Arabella Stuart, and she comes to comfort you, as far as a weak fellow captive can."

"Ah, lady, lady," exclaimed Overbury, "does one whose misery I myself have wrought, come now to comfort me, and generously call herself my friend?"

"Yes, Sir Thomas," answered Arabella; "and I beseech you remember, that not only a poor fallible creature like yourself, but the God whom we have offended, the Saviour whom we crucified, comes likewise to the sick bed of every sinner, calls himself his friend, and offers comfort, hope, and consolation, if we will but accept it."

"Lady, I have been trying to think of such things," replied the dying man; "I have been trying to turn my thoughts to my Saviour; but I am tormented by fiends in human shape, that give me no rest. Lady, I am dying of poison. For weeks I have taken nothing that is not drugged. My food, my drink, the very salt,^[9] which, once given by the wild Arab, secures his bitterest enemy from his vengeance, is mingled with deadly minerals."

"Alas, alas!" cried Arabella, with the tears rising in her eyes, "how can I help you.

"No way," he replied. "God has withdrawn his countenance from me, perhaps to restore it when purified hereafter; but in this world there is no more hope. Would it were over; for I am in torture. Not a limb, not a muscle, is sound; and yet I will not make myself their instrument,--I will not take more of anything they give me, than is absolutely needful for the bare support of life."

"I can bring you food," exclaimed Arabella, eagerly; "the guards are now away. Through this window I can supply you every night."

"Oh, blessings on you," cried the wretched man. "You are an angel indeed."

Just as he spoke, Ida Mara ran up to Arabella, exclaiming, "Crouch down, crouch down, lady! Here are two men coming with a light. They will not see us in that corner."

Bending down in the angle of the wall, and covered by the deep shadow that it cast, Arabella and the fair Italian waited, in the belief that the men would pass. But though their steps were soon heard coming, the sound ceased when they reached the gate of the tower, and the moment after voices were distinguished speaking in the chamber of Sir Thomas Overbury.

The first words did not clearly reach the ear of those without; but Arabella crept somewhat nearer to the window, and then she heard the unfortunate man reply, "I will not take anything. I do not want it."

"Ay, but you must take some supper, or a little wine at least," said a rough voice.

"No, I will not," he answered, shortly. "I know your horrible devices. I will take no more from your hands; I would rather die of starvation. Put the supper down there; and when you are gone, I will cut from the heart of the meat, which you cannot poison, sufficient to support life. I have an antidote, too, that you know not of, which will make what I do eat sure. But I will take nothing while you are here. The very sight of such fiends destroys me."

"Come, come," said another voice, "this is all nonsense, Sir Thomas. Take some wine, or I will pour it down your throat. You will die of hunger; and then men will say that we have poisoned you."

"They will speak but too truly," cried Overbury. "Get you hence, get you hence! I will drink nothing."

After these words came a low murmuring for several minutes, as if two persons were speaking together in an under tone; and, unable to refrain any longer, Arabella raised her head and looked in.

The two men, Weston and Franklyn, who had been appointed to attend upon Sir Thomas Overbury in prison, were standing together near the table, apparently in consultation, with their heads close together, and far too eager in the dreadful occupation which they had undertaken, to notice, at the dark window, the face gazing at them from without. At length, the former approached the bedside of the prisoner, while the other went round towards the head of the couch, saying, in a civil tone, "I wish you would take something, Sir Thomas."

"I will not," cried the unhappy man. "What are you doing there?" he added.

"Only smoothing your bolster," replied the villain; but at the same instant he snatched the pillow from beneath the dying man's head, and cast it upon his face. The other murderer threw himself upon it, while Weston held it tightly down; and, with a loud and piercing scream, Arabella clasped her hands together, and darted away along the wall, crying, "Murder, Murder!"

Ida Mara followed her as fast as possible, but she was not yet concealed by the buildings, when one of the men looked out. He instantly ran back, pale and trembling, and whispered to his companion, who was still holding the pillow tightly down over the face of their victim, "He is gone; you may take it off--I have seen his spirit!"

Weston gazed at him with wild and haggard eyes for a moment, and then removed the pillow. A slight convulsion passed across Overbury's countenance, and then all was still.