While the fortunes of my King are at stake,
my place is in England, or it may be in Scotland, where there are still
those who are ready to fight to the death in the royal cause. But I have
brought this little one for shelter and safe keeping, and tender usage,
trusting in you who are of kin to her as I could trust no one else--and,
furthermore, that she may be reared in the faith of her dead mother."
"Sweet soul!" murmured the nun. "It was well for her to be taken from your
troubled England to the kingdom of the saints and martyrs."
"True, reverend mother; yet those blasphemous levellers who call us
'Malignants' have dubbed themselves 'Saints.'"
"Then affairs go no better with you in England, I fear, Sir John?"
"Nay, madam, they go so ill that they have reached the lowest depth of
infamy. Hell itself hath seen no spectacle more awful, no murder more
barbarous, no horrider triumph of wickedness, than the crime which was
perpetrated this day se'nnight at Whitehall."
The nun looked at him wistfully, with clasped hands, as one who half
apprehended his meaning.
"The King!" she faltered, "still a prisoner?"
"Ay, reverend lady, but a prisoner in Paradise, where angels are his
guards, and saints and martyrs his companions.
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