Surely, his half-hour had not already expired; and if it had, would she be the person to conduct him to death?
The door opened; a puff of wind extinguished his candle, but not until he had caught the glimmer of jewels, the shining of gold, and the flutter of long, black hair; and then some one came in.

The door was closed; the bolts shot back!--and he was alone with Miranda, the queen.
There was no trouble about recognising her, for she carried in her hand a small lamp, which she held up between them, that its rays might fall directly on both faces.

Each was rather white, perhaps, and one heart was going faster than it had ever gone before, and that one was decidedly not the queen's.

She was dressed exactly as he had seen her, in purple and ermine, in jewels and gold; and strangely out of place she looked there, in her splendid dress and splendid beauty, among the black beetles and rats.

Her face might have been a dead, blank wall, or cut out of cold, white stone, for all it expressed; and as she lightly held up her rich robes in one hand, and in the other bore the light, the dark, shining eyes were fixed on his face, and were as barren of interest, eagerness, compassion, tenderness, or any other feeling, as the shining, black glass ones of a wax doll.