Rose Marie now no longer looked at the accused. She stood beside her father, tall and stately as the water-lilies to which the man who loved her so ardently had once compared her. The mud of the world had left her unsmirched; she carried her head high, for the slimy tendrils of men's unavowable passions, of trickery, of lies and deceit had not reached the high altitude whereon her purity sat enthroned.
Her father was the witness called on behalf of the Crown; he had made his statement on oath, and stood here now to repeat it before all the world. His daughter was his interpreter, since he was unacquainted with the English language.
Her voice was clear and firm as in answer to the questions put to her by the Lord Chief Justice she gave her father's humble name and quality and then her own as Mistress Kestyon, wife of Rupert Kestyon, erstwhile known as my Lord of Stowmaries and Rivaulx.
CHAPTER XLVII
Love that is root and fruit of terrene things,
Love that the whole world's waters shall not drown
The whole world's fiery forces not burn down.
—Swinburne.