Angela
sank swooning in her father's arms.
CHAPTER XXVI.
IN THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH.
The summer and autumn had gone by--an eventful season, for with it had
vanished from the stage of politics one who had played so dignified and
serious a part there. Southampton was dead, Clarendon disgraced and in
exile. The Nestor and the Ulysses of the Stuart epic had melted from the
scene. Down those stairs by which he had descended on his way to so many a
splendid festival, himself a statelier figure than Kings or Princes, the
Chancellor had gone to banishment and oblivion. "The lady" had looked for
the last time, a laughing Jezebel, from a palace window, exultant at her
enemy's fall; and along the river that had carried such tragic destinies
eastward to be sealed in blood, Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, had drifted
quietly out of the history he had helped to make. The ballast of that grave
intellect was flung overboard so that the ship of fools might drift the
faster.
But in Westminster Hall, upon this windy November morning, nobody thought
of Clarendon. The business of the day was interesting enough to obliterate
all considerations of yesterday. The young barristers, who were learning
their trade by listening to their betters, had been shivering on their
benches in the Common Pleas since nine o'clock, in that chilly corner
where every blast from the north or north-east swept over the low wooden
partition that enclosed the court, or cut through the chinks in the
panelling.
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