To her dismay, Anne received another summons from the other party to act as witness.
“I hoped to have spared you this, my sweet,” said Charles, “but never mind; you cannot say anything worse of me than I shall own of myself.”
The two were left to each other for a little while in the bay window. “Oh, sir! can you endure me thus after all?” murmured Anne, as she felt his arm round her.
“Can you endure me after all I left you to bear?” he returned.
“It was not like what I brought on you,” she said.
But they could not talk much of the future; and Charles told how he had rested through all his campaigns in the knowledge that his Anne was watching and praying for him, and how his long illness had brought before him deeper thoughts than he had ever had before, and made him especially dwell on the wrong done to his parents by his long absence, and the lightness with which he had treated home duties and responsibilities, till he had resolved that if his life were then spared, he would neglect them no longer.
“And now,” he said, and paused, “all I shall have done is to break their hearts. What is that saying, ‘Be sure your sin will find you out.’”
“Oh, sir! they are sure not to deal hardly with you.”
“Perhaps the Emperor’s Ambassador may claim me. If so, would you go into banishment with the felon, Anne, love? It would not be quite so mad as when I asked you before.”
“I would go to the ends of the world with you; and we would take little Phil. Do you know, he is growing a salad, and learning Latin, all for papa?”