Then again she tapped, nervously and rapidly, and there was a murmur from
the room; she opened the door softly, pushed it, and took a step into the
room, half closing it behind her.
There were two candles burning on a table in the middle of the room, and
on the near side of it was a group of three persons....
Isabel had seen in one of Mistress Margaret's prayer-books an engraving
of an old Flemish Pieta--a group of the Blessed Mother holding in her
arms the body of her Crucified Son, with the Magdalen on one side,
supporting one of the dead Saviour's hands. Isabel now caught her breath
in a sudden gasp; for here was the scene reproduced before her.
Lady Maxwell was on a low seat bending forwards; the white cap and ruff
seemed like a veil thrown all about her head and beneath her chin; she
was holding in her arms the body of her son, who seemed to have fainted
as he sat beside her; his head had fallen back against her breast, and
his pointed beard and dark hair and her black dress beyond emphasised the
deathly whiteness of his face on which the candlelight fell; his mouth
was open, like a dead man's. Mistress Margaret was kneeling by his left
hand, holding it over a basin and delicately sponging it; and the whole
air was fragrant and aromatic with some ointment in the water; a long
bandage or two lay on the ground beside the basin. The evening light over
the opposite roofs through the window beyond mingled with the light of
the tapers, throwing a strange radiance over the group.
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