'Poor child,' Mary said, 'I will not say there is not blame on both sides, but the life we lead yonder becomes more and more hard. It is ill training for my little son to see angry passions raging, and to hear loud reproaches.'

'I know it! I know it!' Humphrey exclaimed. 'End it, Mary—end it for ever, and come and bless me with your love.'

'Nay, Humphrey, do not urge me to do what is impossible. It cannot be.'

Humphrey Ratcliffe turned away with an impatient gesture, saying,—

'I see no glory in self-martyrdom. I offer you a home, and I swear to protect you from all evil, and keep your boy from evil, train him to be a noble gentleman, and, forsooth, you turn away and will have none of me.'

'Dear friend,' Mary began in a low voice, 'trust me so far as to believe that I have a reason—a good reason—for refusing what would be, I doubt not, a haven of calm after the troubled waters of my life. Trust me, kind Master Ratcliffe, nor think ill of me. I pray you.'

'Ill of you! nay, Mary, you know no saint in heaven is ever more devoutly worshipped than I worship you.' But, seeing her distress as he said these words, he went on,—'I will wait, I will bide my time, and, meanwhile, serve you in all ways I can. Here is this child, your young sister, chafing against the life she leads here. I will do my best to persuade my mother to take her in her company to London for the grand show, and it may be that some great lady may take a fancy for her, and she may win a place as waiting-woman about the person of some Court dame. Do you consent? Do you give me permission to try?'

'But Lucy is not in favour with your mother; she disdains us as beneath her notice.'

'Not you—not Lucy; it is your father's widow whom she mislikes. Her Puritan whims and fancies are a cause of offence, and no aversions are so strong as those begotten by religious difference.'

'That is so, alas!' Mary Gifford said. 'Persecution for diversity of faith, rather for diversity in the form of worship: it is this that tears this country into baleful divisions, and pierces it with wounds which are slow to heal.'