The most beautiful blue Irish eyes in the world gazed out at the dawn

which turned night-blue into day-blue and paled the stars. Rosal lay the

undulating horizon, presently to burst into living flame, transmuting the

dull steel bars of the window into fairy gold, that trick of alchemy so

futilely sought by man. There was a window at the north and another at the

south, likewise barred; but the Irish eyes never sought these two. It was

from the east window only that they could see the long white road that led

to Paris.

The nightingale was truly caged. But the wild heart of the eagle beat in

this nightingale's breast, and the eyes burned as fiercely toward the east

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as the east burned toward the west. Sunday and Monday, Tuesday and

Wednesday and Thursday, to-day; and that the five dawns were singular in

beauty and that she had never in her life before witnessed the creation of

five days, one after another, made no impression upon her sense of the

beautiful, so delicate and receptive in ordinary times. She was conscious

that within her the cup of wrath was overflowing. Of other things, such as

eating and sleeping and moving about in her cage (more like an eagle

indeed than a nightingale), recurrence had blunted her perception.

Her clothes were soiled and crumpled, sundrily torn; her hair was in

disorder, and tendrils hung about her temples and forehead--thick black

hair, full of purple tones in the sunlight--for she had not surrendered

peacefully to this incarceration. Dignity, that phase of philosophy which

accepts quietly the inevitable, she had thrown to the winds. She had

fought desperately, primordially, when she had learned that her errand of

mercy was nothing more than a cruel hoax.

"Oh, but he shall pay, he shall pay!" she murmured, striving to loosen the

bars with her small, white, helpless hands. The cry seemed to be an

arietta, for through all these four maddening days she had voiced it,--now

low and deadly with hate, now full-toned in burning anger, now broken by

sobs of despair. "Will you never come, so that I may tell you how base and

vile you are?" she further addressed the east.

She had waited for his appearance on Sunday. Late in the day one of the

jailers had informed her that it was impossible for the gentleman to come

before Monday. So she marshaled her army of phrases, of accusations, of

denunciations, ready to smother him with them the moment he came. But he

came not Monday, nor Tuesday, nor Wednesday. The suspense was to her mind

diabolical. She began to understand: he intended to keep her there till he

was sure that her spirit was broken, then he would come. Break her spirit?

She laughed wildly. He could break her spirit no more easily than she

could break these bars. To bring her to Versailles upon an errand of

mercy! Well, he was capable of anything.




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