“If Edward had wronged thee, great earl, as me, poor franklin, what would be thine answer? In vain moralize to him whom the spectre of a murdered child and the shriek of a maniac wife haunt and hound on to vengeance! So send me to rack and halter. Be there one curse more on the soul of Edward!”
“Thou shalt not die through my witness,” said the earl, abruptly; and he quitted the chamber.
Securing the door by a heavy bolt on the outside, he gave orders to his squire to attend to the comforts of the prisoner; and then turning into his closet with Marmaduke, said: “I sent for thee, young cousin, with design to commit to thy charge one whose absence from England I deemed needful—that design I must abandon. Go back to the palace, and see, if thou canst, the king before he sleeps; say that this rising in Lincolnshire is more than a riot,—it is the first burst of a revolution! that I hold council here to-night, and every shire, ere the morrow, shall have its appointed captain. I will see the king at morning. Yet stay—gain sight of my child Anne; she will leave the court to-morrow. I will come for her; bid her train be prepared; she and the countess must away to Calais,—England again hath ceased to be a home for women! What to do with this poor rebel?” muttered the earl, when alone; “release him I cannot; slay him I will not. Hum, there is space enough in these walls to inclose a captive.”
CHAPTER VII. THE FEAR AND THE FLIGHT.
King Edward feasted high, and Sibyll sat in her father’s chamber,—she silent with thought of love, Adam silent in the toils of science. The Eureka was well-nigh finished, rising from its ruins more perfect, more elaborate, than before. Maiden and scholar, each seeming near to the cherished goal,—one to love’s genial altar, the other to fame’s lonely shrine.
Evening advanced, night began, night deepened. King Edward’s feast was over, but still in his perfumed chamber the wine sparkled in the golden cup. It was announced to him that Sir Marmaduke Nevile, just arrived from the earl’s house, craved an audience. The king, pre-occupied in deep revery, impatiently postponed it till the morrow.
“To-morrow,” said the gentleman in attendance, “Sir Marmaduke bids me say, fearful that the late hour would forbid his audience, that Lord Warwick himself will visit your Grace. I fear, sire, that the disturbances are great indeed, for the squires and gentlemen in Lady Anne’s train have orders to accompany her to Calais to-morrow.”
“To-morrow, to-morrow!” repeated the king—“well, sir, you are dismissed.”
The Lady Anne (to whom Sibyll had previously communicated the king’s kindly consideration for Master Warner) had just seen Marmaduke, and learned the new dangers that awaited the throne and the realm. The Lancastrians were then openly in arms for the prince of her love, and against her mighty father!